What is Literary Criticism?

• Literary criticism is analysis of a literary text. It may be written for a general audience, such as a book review, or it may be sustained scholarly analysis written for an academic audience.

• Literary Critics bring many different perspectives to bear on the written word! 

• These perspectives often evolve as reactions to the political, economic, cultural, educational and artistic climate of a historical period.

• These perspectives are referred to as Schools of Literary Criticism. Get to know different schools of criticism.

The following is a list of some schools of Literary Criticism. There are others!

Note: You may not find criticism of your short story from your critical perspective. It may help you develop your analysis, however, to read how your school of criticism is applied to another story.

Remember too: relevant scholarly criticism may not use the exact terminology of your school of criticism.

• To find Marxist criticism, for example, you might search for class, power, poverty, etc.
• To find a feminist reading, you might search for articles that talk about women or gender
• To find critical race theory, you might search for articles on race or racism, race identity, etc.

Literary Theory Background Information and Definitions on the Web

Selected Resources on Schools of Literary Criticism