critical

• Literature

  Imaginative work that pictures human life in a society that can be enjoyed, understood, and used by society. Literature is a means of social expression, a mirror of life, and an interpretation of human expressions that help us understand how to live.
• Literary criticism

  The study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. It does NOT mean "to criticize" as in complain or disapprove.
• Critical Approaches


  Different perspectives we can consider when looking at a piece or several pieces of literature. Their purpose is to help us answer the following questions: 1. What do we read? 2. Why do we read? 3. How do we read?
• Important Critical Approaches

  • Formalist Criticism
  • Biographical Criticism
  • Mythological Criticism
  • New Historicist Criticism
  • Psychological/Psychoanalytic Criticism
  • Deconstructionist Criticism
  • Reader-Response Criticism
  • Sociological Criticism
  • Marxist Criticism
  • Feminist Criticism
  • Gender Criticism
  • Postcolonial Criticism
• Formalist Criticism emphasizes the form of a literary work to determine its meaning, focusing on literary elements and how they work to create meaning.
• Formalist Criticism


  • A text is a completely separate and individual entity. Examine texts out of the context of their time period, social setting, and author's background.
  • Employs close readings of texts and an analysis of the effects of literary elements and techniques on the text.
• Tenets of Formalism

  • Literary texts have "fixed meanings." This means they exist independent of any particular reader or context.
  • The greatest literary texts are "timeless" and "universal."
• Biographical Criticism

  Emphasizes the importance of the author's life and background into account when analyzing a text.
• Tenets of Biographical Criticism

  • Understanding an author's background can help readers interpret a text.
  • Understanding an author's difficulties in creating that text can help readers appreciate a text.
  • Studying the way authors apply and modify their own life experiences in their works can help readers understand the author.
• Mythological Criticism

  Examines the "universal" elements of human life as they occur across cultures.
• Tenet of Mythological Criticism

  • Archetypes are central to this form. Archetypes are the universal elements occurring in literary works from all over the world.
• New Historicist (or Historical) Criticism


  Posits that every literary work is the product of its time and its world.
• Tenets of New Historicist Criticism


  • Gives appropriate background information to help readers understand how text were perceived in their time.
  • Examines how literary texts reflect the ideas,beliefs, and attitudes of the time in which they were created.
• Psychological/Psychoanalytic Criticism

  Based on the work of Sigmund Freud. The text is seen as a reflection of the author's mind and personality.
• Tenets of Psychological/Psychoanalytic Criticism

  • Views characters in Literature as a reflection of the author her/himself.
  • Uses in-depth character analysis to understand the ulterior motives of the characters.
• Deconstructionist Criticism

  Argues that because there is no single meaning of any word, there is no single meaning of any text. ALL texts have multiple, valid meanings because readers will interpret words differently than the writer intended them.
• Tenets of Deconstructive Criticism

  • Most literary criticism focuses on the construction of a larger meaning from the text but deconstructionist criticism focuses on the DECONSTRUCTION (or tearing down) of any meaning within a text by a variety of readers.
  • Everything and anything can be relative to YOU.
• Reader-Response Criticism

  Argues that the meaning of a text is dependent upon the reader's response to it. Focuses on the act of reading and how it affects readers' perceptions of a text. Text as an EXPERIENCE, not an object. The text is a living thing that exists in the reader's imagination.
• Tenets of Reader-Response Criticism

  • Basically, READER + READING SITUATION + TEXT = MEANING
  • A person's interpretation will likely change over time, as they have more and more experiences to bring with them to the text.
  • Readers from different periods of time, different cultures, and different places will have different interpretations of the same text.
• Sociological Criticism

  Argues that social contexts must be taken into consideration when analyzing a text. Focuses on the beliefs and values of a society and how they are reflected in a text. Focuses on economic, political, and cultural issues within a literary text.
• Most Important Tenet of Sociological Criticism

  • Literature is a reflection of society that created it.
• Marxist Criticism

  Focuses on understanding how power, politics, and money play a role in literary texts and amongst literary societies and characters.
• Two Most Important Focuses of Marxist Criticism

  • The ways in which dominant groups (or majority groups) exploit those deemed as subordinate (or minority groups)
  • The ways in which people are alienated from one another because of power, money, and politics.
• Feminist Criticism

  Focuses on the roles, positions, and influences of women within literary texts. Focuses on the ways female consciousness is written by both female and male authors.
• Tenets of Feminist Criticism

  • Western civilization is patriarchal.
  • Patriarchal ideals pervade Literature.
  • Most Literature throughout time has been gender-biased (because most lasting Literature has been written by men).
• Gender Criticism (Queer Theory)


  Analyzes the influence and representation of sexuality (mainly, "queer sexualities") within a literary text.
• Tenets of Gender Criticism and Queer Theory

  • The concepts of gender and gender roles are ideals created by patriarchal societies.
  • Because queer sexualities were largely suppressed by Western society for so long, the appearances and influences of queer sexualities within a literary text are often subversive.
• Postcolonial Criticism

  Focuses on literary texts produced in places that were, at one time, under the influence of European (read: white) colonial rule. Seeks to break down the false images and myths that the Western (read: white) world has created about the non-Western world.
• Basic Tenets of Postcolonial Criticism

  • Colonization is both violent and destructive by nature, which informs and influences the production of art in non-Western, colonized