Doing Criticism

Book excerpt: Not only an accessible hands-on guide to writing criticism across the literary arts, the dramatic arts, and the narrative screen arts, but also a book that makes a case for how and why criticism matters today Doing Criticism: Across Literary and Screen Arts is a practical guide to engaging actively and productively with a critical object, whether a film, a novel, or a play. Going beyond the study of lyric poetry and literature to include motion picture and dramatic arts, this unique text provides specific advice on how to best write criticism while offering concrete illustrations of what it looks like on the page. Divided into two parts, the book first presents an up-to-date account of the state of criticism in both Anglo-American and Continental contexts—describing both the longstanding mission and the changing functions of criticism over the centuries and discussing critical issues that bridge the literary and screen arts in the contemporary world. The second part of the book features a variety of case studies of criticism across media, including works by canonical authors such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and W. B. Yeats; films such as Coppola's The Conversation and Hitchcock's Vertigo; screen adaptations of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day; and a concluding chapter on several of Spike Lee's film "joints" that brings several of the book's central concepts to bear on work of a single film auteur. Helping students of literature and cinema write well about what they find in their reading and viewing, Doing Criticism: Across Literary and Screen Arts: Discusses how the bridging of the literary arts and screen arts can help criticism flourish in the present day Illustrates how the doing of criticism is in practice a particular kind of writing Considers how to generalize the consequences of criticism beyond personal growth and gratification Addresses the ways the practice of criticism matters to the practice of the critical object Suggests that doing without criticism is not only unwise, but also perhaps impossible Features case studies organized under the rubrics of conversation, adaptation, genre, authorship and seriality Doing Criticism: Across Literary and Screen Arts is an ideal text for students in introductory courses in criticism, literary studies, and film studies, as well as general readers with interest in the subject.