Critical Approaches to

Literature
We’ll play Name That Critical
Approach game at the end, so
be ready!
 What is literary criticsm?
 A way of talking about
literature
 The lens through which
we like to examine
literature
 For example
• People who believe that
understanding the
author’s life can help
readers better
understand his/her work,
often use Biographical
Criticism
 Major Critical Approaches
 There are many 1. Formalist
critical approaches 2. Biographical
however here are 3. Historical
some major ones to 4. Psychological
which we may be 5. Mythological
referring: 6. Sociological
7. Gender
8. Reader-Response
9. Deconstructionist
10. Cultural Studies
 Kinds of approaches
 Reader-based
• Literature does not exist separate from those
who read it
• An individual’s background and feelings are part
of how they read and interpret literature
 Text-based
• Primarily look at the work itself, separate from
context in which it was written or who wrote it
 Context-based
• Examines the context in which a work was
produced
 Formalist Criticism
 Strongly examines  Seeks to examine a
elements such as work in isolation
plot, character, style from
and tone, irony, • the reader,
symbol, etc. • the author,
 Believes that • the context in which
studying these it was written
elements is the most  Do you think this
significant way to approach is reader,
find meaning about text, or context
the text based?
 Biographical Criticism
 Examines how details  Might examine
and people in author’s multiple drafts to try
life have affected a and decipher why a
work writer crafted the way
 Might examine the she did
events of writer’s life,  Danger: often life
(Hemingway’s stories can overwhelm
reporting about the the literature, making
Spanish Civil war) and it difficult to
use them to better understand or examine
understand For Whom the work for its own
the Bell Tolls merits
 Historical Criticism
 Seeks to  Less concerned
understand a with a work’s
literary work by significance today
investigating the than what it meant
social, cultural, and in its time
intellectual context  How the time and
that produced it place of a story’s
 Context includes creation affect its
author’s biography meaning
 Psychological Criticism
 Emphasizes the underlying meaning
in literature in relationship to
psychological components
• Sexual symbols, dreams, repressed feelings,
an individual character’s conscious and/or
subconscious motives, etc.
 The critic might look at a character’s
psychological make-up, sanity, etc.
 Mythological Criticism
 An interdisciplinary approach
 Often draws from anthropology, comparative
religion, history, and psychology
 Explore literature through examination of
common humanity
 Commonly discuss archetypes in literature:
symbols or situations that evoke a universal
response
• Coming of age motif
• The hero’s journey
• Good v. evil as seen in light v. dark
 Sociological Criticism
 Examines literature in the cultural,
economic, and political context in
which is it written or received
 Looks at the relationship of the artist
and society
• How the social classes of characters
influence their outcomes
• The political or social statements a work
offers
 Gender Criticism
 Examines how sexual  Men’s movement:
identity influences the seeks to examine
creation and reception ideas of masculinity
of literary works  May examine how
 Began with the women are
feminist movement stereotyped or what
 Often looks at how roles they play in
text by examining literatureI
“male-produced”  nfluenced by
assumptions in works sociology, psychology,
and anthropology
 Reader-Response Criticism
 Attempts to describe what happens in the
reader’s mind while reading a text
 Acknowledges that different readers
come to a text with different backgrounds
that will affect their interpretations
 Though it rejects the idea that there is a
singular, correct interpretation, it notes
that there are not an infinite number of
interpretations
 Cultural Studies
 No central methodology is used
 Interdisciplinary field
 Primary looks at the nature of social
power as revealed in “texts”
• Cereal boxes
• Commercials
• Literature
 Seeks to identify the overt and covert
values reflected in a cultural practice
 Name That Critical Approach:
 See handout