Literary Criticism In The Post-Truth Era

ANDALAS INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIO-HUMANITIES- VOL. 1 NO. 1 (2019) Available online at : http://aijosh.lppm.unand.ac.id/index.php/aijosh/ Andalas International Journal of Socio-Humanities | ISSN (Online) 2715-601X | Article Literary Criticism In The Post-Truth Era Donny Syofyan1 1 Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Andalas, Indonesia ARTICLE INFORMATION A B S T R A C T Received: March 10, 2019 Post truth relates to circumstances whereby objective facts are less influential in shaping the opinion of the public, rather appealing to personal belief and emotion. Post truth era is bordering a blurry line between lies and truths, dishonesty and honesty, nonfiction and fiction. The entire phenomenon of post truth is about an individual’s opinion being worth more than the facts. As such, the present paper seeks to understand new insights or perspectives in literary criticism in the post truth era. The criticism of the literature was always based on broad schools of thoughts/theories, which were employed for many centuries. Some of the traditional approaches the paper highlights include: formalistic criticism, biographical criticism, historical criticism, gender criticism, psychological criticism, sociological criticism, mythological criticism, reader-response criticism, and deconstructionist criticism. Equally, the paper extensively analyzes some of the new perspectives or insights to literary criticism in the post truth era: reflective approach, didactic approach, partisan approach, and religious approach. In reflective approach to literature criticism in the post truth era, the meaning in the literature is reflected by the outside of its own being. On the other hand, in didactic approach to literature criticism, truth and meaning is taught in the literature. Moreover, in partisan approach to literature criticism, there is the truthful meaning that is already known and can be found in the literature. Lastly, in the religious approach to literature criticism in post truth era, the meaning and truth is the literature itself, while the outside world has nothing to do with it. Revised: Mei 12, 2019 Available online: June 27, 2019 KEYWORDS Literary, critism, post-truth CORRESPONDENCE E-mail: INTRODUCTION Post truth is defined as denoting or relating to circumstances whereby objective facts are less influential in shaping the opinion of the public than appeals to personal belief and emotion (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). Cambridge Dictionary (2017) also defined post truth as relating Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. Some rights reserved 25 ANDALAS INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIO-HUMANITIES- VOL. 1 NO. 1 (2019) to a situation where people have more likelihood of accepting an argument based on their beliefs and emotions, instead of one based on facts. Post truth era implies bordering a blurry line between lies and truths, dishonesty and honesty, nonfiction and fiction. Deceiving other people became a game, a challenge, and ultimately a habit. When observing the political scenes, the post truth era fueled campaigns based on arguments that are emotive, instead of fact checks. Post truth is seen as damage to the whole democracy fabric and a corruption of intellectual integrity (Coughlan, 2017). Sean documented that the key ingredient in the culture of post truth was represented by the social media rise. The entire phenomenon of post truth is about an individual’s opinion being worth more than the facts; highly valuing the individual’s is feelings. This terrible narcissistic state was empowered by the fact that anyone can publish their opinion, while any shred of disagreement to the opinion is regarded as an attack towards the publisher, and not towards the ideas published (Coughlan, 2017). Moreover, fake news all over in the social media compounded with the online culture amongst people that cannot distinguish fiction and facts (Coughlan, 2017). Since the ancient times, the readers critiqued and debated literature from different perspectives. Some readers examined a play or a story from a moral stance, making consideration on the manner in which the texts were representing values. Other literature critics can equally evaluate a poem in terms of the form. However, recent critics in the post truth era observed the literature, seeking to find out what it might be saying about people’s lives in society, power and political relations, sexuality or gender roles (Gavilan, 2017). Thus, this paper discusses discuss literary criticism in the post truth era, with an emphasis on the new perspectives or insights that the post-truth era may offer for literary criticism. While discovering these new perspectives or insights, the paper initially examines the existing critical approaches to literature as a basis for finding out the new perspectives, which were not discussed by the traditional approaches. LITERARY CRITICISM Formalist criticism According to Olemiss (2017), the approach of literary criticism considers literature as a unique human knowledge form needing examination on its own terms. This implies that all the necessary elements for understanding the work are confined within the work itself. The formalistic critic has a specific interest on the form elements that is the imagery, tone, structure, style among others, which are found within the text. Moreover, the primary goal for the formalistic critic is to determine the manner through which such elements are working together within the content of text in shaping its effects to the readers. Biographical criticism Olemiss (2017) also claims that the approach of literary criticism begins with the central but simple insight that literary works are written by actual people. As such,, getting to understand the life of an author can help the readers to thoroughly comprehend their work. Therefore, in most instances it provides a more practical method through which the readers are able to better understand texts. However, Olemiss (2017) advises the biographical critics not to over-interpret or over-use the biographical facts of the life of a writer when criticizing the writer’s work. The biographical critic should focus on explicating the literary work by applying the provided insights through the knowledge of the life of the author. Therefore, the biographical information should amplify the text meaning, and not produce irrelevant materials. 26 ANDALAS INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIO-HUMANITIES- VOL. 1 NO. 1 (2019) Historical criticism This approach of literary criticism seeks to understand the literary work by investigating the intellectual, cultural, and social context that produced it. In addition, the context necessarily includes the biography of the author and milieu. The main goal for the historical critics is to understand the literary work’s effect on its original readers. Gender criticism According to Olemiss (2017), this approach of literary criticism examines the influence of the sexual identity on the crea (...truncated)