After reading “My Last Duchess”, my rankings changed considerably. For instance, I had initially ranked an understanding of traditional literary elements among the least important elements before reading the text, afterward it was among the top. Conversely, I ranked contemporary cultural context among my highly important elements, after the reading I ranked it last. These changes were made mostly due to time period that the paper was written in. I feel as if all the elements listed on the are important, but their importance varies depending on the piece. In my opinion different considerations must be made for different literary works, depending on the context, author, time period, etc.
Regarding literary criticism, I believe right now I am more of a reader response critic. I have never given much thought to criticism, in fact this is my first class that actually examines the context of literature. The english courses I have previously been enrolled in have been composition based. That being said, I am very interested in both feminist and marxist criticism, the concepts and point of views that they use to examine literature are ones that I haven't really analyzed.
I agree with you in regards to cultural context, while I didn't rank them dead last, they were pretty low on my list. I am of the opinion that a piece of literature in a perfect world should stand on its own regardless of cultural context. That, I think, is one of the things that makes a "timeless piece" in fact "timeless", the fact that it can speak to anyone regardless of culture. I also find the Marxist method of literary criticism interesting though I do find my self steering towards reader-response. It seems to me that reader response is a more objective approach in that it does not rely on ones social or political interpretations when critiquing a piece of literature.
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