Post on 05-Jan-2016
Narrative/Literary Criticism
Narrative/Literary Criticism
A Focus on the TextA Focus on the Text
The Discipline of Lit Crit
• 1940’s - New Criticism
• Previously focus on background information
• literary work as autonomous object
• judged on intrinsic criteria -coherence, integrity, equilibrium, complexity, parts to the whole
• Implied Author and Audience
• final form- rhetoric, style, syntax, tone, point of view, imagery, setting, plot, characters, narrators
Developments
• Structuralism
• Deep Structure
• Common plots and characters
• Reader Response - meaning transcends
Redaction to Narrative
• Evangelists not just as editors, but as authors
• Lit Crit: If authors, they must be studied as other authors
• Looks for one correct theme, structure, historical setting of the author
• Lit Crit: A variety of meanings in text and among readers
“These books are stories about Jesus , not compilations of miscellaneous data
concerning him. They are meant to be read
from beginning to end, not dissected and examined to
determine the relative value of individual
passages.” Mark Alan Powell, What is
Narrative Criticism?
Timeline
1969 William Beardslee
1977 David Rhodes and Don Michie, Mark as Story
1983Kingsbury, Christology of Mark’s Gospel
Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel
1985Tannehill,
Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts
Advantages and Dangers?Advantages and Dangers?
Caesarea Philippi
Caesarea Philippi