Summary
Sergey N. Sarinyan
The author of the article, defining the subject of literary criticism, delineates the past of the Armenian literary criticism – from its origin to the present day. The Armenian literary critical thought originated from the 5th century. As it is noted, at its theoretical basis weret he theses about literature and art of the famous figures of the antique Greko-Roman and Hellenic culture,namely Plato,Aristotle,Horatio and Dionysius Thrax.
The grammar shcool directed the whole medieval Armenian litarary cryitical thought. The classicism originated from the 18th century based on the theorotical principle of Boileau’s “The Art of Poetry”. In the 19th century the historiography of the Armenian literature was formed owing to the works of Sukias Somalyan, Hovsep Gatrchyan, Stepanos Nazaryants, Stepanos Palasanyan, Garegin Zarbhanalyan. Biographic, historyic and cultural-historic methods are differentiated in literary criticism. The works of Hegel, August Cont, Belinski, SainteBeuve, Ipolit Ten, Georg Brandes and other famous thinkers echoed in the views of the Armenian literary ctirics.
The so called “revolution of methods” took place in the literary criticism of the 20th century. Sociologic, psychological, formalistic, Marxist and othe rmethods -up to so-called “new criticism (structuralism)” – were formed. Philosophy of literature has wide perspectives, i.e. the philosophic direction in literary criticism.