Literary Criticism is analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of authors and their works of literature, which can include novels, short stories, essays, plays and poetry.
Such critical analysis is often written by literary critics and is found in essays, articles, books and multimedia.
Literary "criticism" is not necessarily negative; "criticism" means a thoughtful critique of an author's work or an author's style in order to better understand the meaning, symbolism or influences of a particular piece or a body of literature.
Criticism may be written for a general or student audience or it may be scholarly. Search for and read insightful articles and more that help you understand a literary work and formulate your own questions and answers. Starting with general criticism may be a helpful strategy. Scholarship can be very narrow in scope and it assumes pre-existing knowledge.
Look at the two examples below; both offer information about the work and the author. What are some of the differences you see in these two sources? How might these sources be helpful?
“Everyday Use” was published early in Alice Walker's writing career, appearing in her collection In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women in 1973. The work was enthusiastically reviewed upon publication, and “Everyday Use” has since been called by some critics the best of Walker's short stories. In letting a rural black woman with little education tell a story that affirms the value of her heritage, Walker articulates what has since become, as critic Barbara Christian notes, two central themes in her writing: "the importance of the quilt in her work . . . [and] the creation of African American Southern women as subjects in their own right."
Accessed from the literary criticism database called Gale Literature
Source Citation: Wilson. "Overview: 'Everyday Use." Short Stories for Students, edited by Kathleen, vol. 2, Detroit, Gale, 1997. Gale Literature. Accessed 18 Mar. 2015.
“Most readers of Alice Walker's short story, “Everyday Use,” … agree that the point of the story is to show, as Nancy Tuten argues, a mother's “awakening to one daughter's superficiality and to the other's deep-seated understanding of heritage” (Tuten 125). These readers praise the “simplicity” of Maggie and her mother, along with their allegiance to their specific family identity and folk heritage …. Such a reading condemns the older, more worldly sister, Dee, as “shallow,” “condescending,” and “manipulative,” as overly concerned with style, fashion, and aesthetics, and thus as lacking a “true” understanding of her heritage. In this essay, conversely, I will argue that this popular view is far too simple a reading of the story. While Dee is certainly insensitive and selfish to a certain degree, she nevertheless offers a view of heritage and a strategy for contemporary African Americans to cope with an oppressive society that is, in some ways, more valid than that offered by Mama and Maggie.”
Accessed from the library database called Academic Search Complete
Source citation: Farrell, Susan. “Fight vs. Flight: A Re-Evaluation of Dee in Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use.’” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 35, no. 2, Spring 1998, p. 179. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=6297587&site=ehost-live.
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature by The quote below is a sample of a source for background criticism of the author Alice Walker
"Early on Walker was greatly influenced by Russian novelists such as Dostoyevsky, Gogol, and Tolstoy. She read them as if 'they were a delicious cake."
It was accessed from the reference book cited below.
Source citation: Upchurch, Gail L. "Walker, Alice." Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature, edited by Hans Ostrom, Jr. and J. David Macey Westport, Greenwood Press, 2005, pp. 1672-74.