SCHOOLS OF

LITERARY
CRITICISM
PREPARED BY:
ULIANA BRYLIANTOVYCH
WHAT IS LITERARY CRITICISM?
Literary criticism is the comparison, analysis, interpretation, and/or
evaluation of works of literature. Literary criticism is essentially an opinion,
supported by evidence, relating to theme, style, setting or historical or
political context. It usually includes discussion of the work’s content and
integrates your ideas with other insights gained from research. Literary
criticism may have a positive or a negative bias and may be a study of an
individual piece of literature or an author’s body of work.
TYPES OF
LITERARY
CRITICISM Biographical Mimetic
Comparative Pragmatic
Ethical Psychological
Expressive Social
Feminist Textual
Historical Practical
 Biographical criticism is a form of literary criticism which
analyzes a writer's biography to show the relationship
between the author's life and their works of literature.
Biographical criticism is often associated with historical-
biographical criticism, a critical method that "sees a literary
work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of its author's life
and times".

BIOGRAPHICAL
CRITICISM
COMPARATIVE
CRITICISM
Comparative Criticism is an annual journal of comparative
literature and cultural studies that has gained an international
reputation since its inception in 1979. It contains major articles
on literary theory and criticism; on a wide range of
comparative topics; and on interdisciplinary debates. It
includes translations of literary, scholarly and critical works;
substantial reviews of important books in the field; and
bibliographies on specialist themes for the year, on individual
writers, and on comparative literary studies in Britain and
Ireland.
 ETHICAL
CRITICISM
Ethical literary criticism is a theory of interpreting
and analyzing literature from an ethical
perspective. It examines literature as a unique
expression of ethics and morality within a
certain historical period, and argues that
literature is not just an art of language, but also
an art of text. Ethical literary criticism is aimed at
interpreting literary texts, claiming that almost
all literary texts are the records of human beings'
moral experiences and contain ethical
structures or ethical lines. Ethical lines form the
main ethical structure. Compared to the written
text in literature, the text of oral literature, which
can be termed as brain text, is stored in the
human brain. The material and fundamental
existence of literature is based on written
context.
FEMINIST
CRITICISM
Feminist literary criticism looks at
literature assuming its production from a
male-dominated perspective. It re-
examines canonical works to show how
gender stereotypes are involved in their
functioning. It examines (and often
rediscovers) works by women for a
possible alternative voice.
HISTORICAL
CRITICISM
Historical criticism is the historical approach
to literary criticism. It involves looking beyond
the literature at the broader historical and
cultural events occurring during the time the
piece was written. An understanding of the
world the author lived in (events, ideologies,
culture, lifestyle etc.)
MIMETIC
CRITICISM
Mimetic criticism views the literary work as
an imitation, or reflection, or representation
of the world and human life, and the primary
criterion applied to a work is the “truth” and
“adequacy” of its representation to the
matter that it represents, or should represent.
PRAGMATIC
CRITICISM
Pragmatic Criticism views the work as
something that is constructed in order to
achieve certain effects on the audience, and
the critics judge the value of the work
according to its success in achieving the aim.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
CRITICISM
Psychological criticism focuses primarily
on the characters, and on what
psychological forces influence and shape
them throughout the work. This school of
criticism emphasizes character
development and the relationships
between characters. Most psychological
critics rely on the works of Sigmund Freud
as their psychological base, though this
is by no means necessary.
 Sociological criticism is literary criticism directed
to understanding literature in its larger social
context; it codifies the literary strategies that are
employed to represent social constructs through a
sociological methodology. Sociological criticism
analyzes both how the social functions in literature
and how literature works in society. This form of
literary criticism was introduced by Kenneth Burke,

SOCIAL a 20th-century literary and critical theorist, whose

article "Literature As Equipment for Living" outlines
the specification and significance of such a
critique.

CRITICISM
 TEXTUAL
CRITICISM
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned
with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the
texts of manuscripts. Ancient scribes often made errors or
alterations, while copying manuscripts by hand. Given a
manuscript copy, several or many copies, but not the original
document, the textual critic seeks to reconstruct the original text
as closely as possible. The same processes can be used to
attempt to reconstruct intermediate editions, or recensions, of a
document's transcription history.
 PRACTICAL
CRITICISM
This study of literature
encourages readers to examine
the text without regarding any of
the outside context—like the
author, the date and place of
writing, or any other contextual
information that may enlighten
the reader.
Thank you for attention