The Role of a Critic

In my opinion, a critic is someone who takes on artistic, literary, formal and informal, arts and places judgments, critiques, opinions through various methods of expressions. It may be in writing, speech, art itself, etc. A critic is also one who analyzes such various arts to find a deeper meaning and/ or to discover and comment on the value for its existence. Since I believe being a critic involves a self-reflected view, I therefore cannot see a bad critic per se, because it’s the opinions and believes of the individual person, so how could one be “wrong” for how they feel? Critics can play a small or big role in society depending on the person or thing on the other side being critiqued. One can hold a critic’s view to a high standard or one could disregard everything a critic says and go their own route.

The purpose of a critic to me, is to be able to express one’s opinions and thoughts without devaluing the thoughts of others that may or may not agree with you. I would think a critic has to be open minded and know they can, and probably will be subjected to criticisms themselves. A good critic holds value to their ability of self expression, but has respect and accepts the creativity and individuality of others.

I believe we are here to learn and understand the process behind critics and also the steps to perhaps becoming a better critic for ourselves as well. I know we are consciously and subconsciously daily critics throughout life’s everyday happenings, but we’re also here to study different literary arts through a critic’s point of view.

I think we study this subject because we need to have a better view of the world we’re living in, in different ways and outlooks which will be expressed individually and collectively in class. It is the moments when we slow down and really analyze things that happen everyday and look at it from other perspectives besides the ones we have grown accustomed to feeling. Sometimes it is easy to see something and go off your first instinct of how it made you feel, but there are the times when you really look deeper into things and discover there is more than one way at which something can be interpreted. This is what I believe this class was made for.

For me, I hope and expect to get a lot of this class. I consider myself an open minded person, but sometimes I don’t express my feelings, thoughts, and opinions to others to avoid conflict. I feel like this class will help me realize that everyone is a critic in some shape or form, and that it’s okay to express yourself with decency. I hope to further my appreciation for other people’s point of views. I have already had several moments in only four classes where I’ve thought to myself, “I never thought of it that way” or “That was a good point or idea.” I really hope the class as a whole opens and strengthens their awareness of the subject in which we will learn.