1. Critical Approaches to Literature
We’ll play Name That Critical Approach game at the end, so be ready!

2. 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

3. Major Critical Approaches
There are many critical approaches however here are some major ones to which we may be referring:
Formalist
Biographical
Historical
Psychological
Mythological
Sociological
Gender
Reader-Response
Deconstructionist
Cultural Studies

4. Kinds of approaches Reader-based Text-based Context-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

5. Formalist Criticism
Strongly examines elements such as plot, character, style and tone, irony, symbol, etc.
Believes that studying these elements is the most significant way to find meaning about the text
Seeks to examine a work in isolation from
the reader,
the author,
the context in which it was written
Do you think this approach is reader, text, or context based?

6. Biographical Criticism
Examines how details and people in author’s life have affected a work
Might examine the events of writer’s life, (Hemingway’s reporting about the Spanish Civil war) and use them to better understand For Whom the Bell Tolls
Might examine multiple drafts to try and decipher why a writer crafted the way she did
Danger: often life stories can overwhelm the literature, making it difficult to understand or examine the work for its own merits

7. Historical Criticism
Seeks to understand a literary work by investigating the social, cultural, and intellectual context that produced it
Context includes author’s biography
Less concerned with a work’s significance today than what it meant in its time
How the time and place of a story’s creation affect its meaning

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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

11. Gender Criticism
Examines how sexual identity influences the creation and reception of literary works
Began with the feminist movement
Often looks at how text by examining “male-produced” assumptions in works
Men’s movement: seeks to examine ideas of masculinity
May examine how women are stereotyped or what roles they play in literatureI
nfluenced by sociology, psychology, and anthropology

12. 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

13. 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

14. Name That Critical Approach:
See handout