For sustained and deeper literary criticism, look for relevant scholarly articles and books in library databases.
LITERARY CRITICISM IS analysis, interpretation and evaluation of authors and their works of literature, which can include novels, short stories, essays, plays and poetry.
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.
Literary critical analysis is often written by literary critics and is found in scholarly journals and books.
A scholarly journal may be referred to as a peer-reviewed journal.
Articles are written by scholars in a subject area for an academic or professional audience. Check for author affiliations or credentials in the database record or at the beginning or end of an article.
Scholarly literary criticism may be extensively cited, if the author references the work of other thinkers. Scholarly articles in the sciences and social sciences are, as a rule, extensively and thoroughly cited.
Scholarly literary criticism engages with a written work in a thoughtful, sustained manner. While literary criticism from a reference book provides you with introductory terminology, context, interpretation and more, scholarly criticism goes deeper.
Scholarly literary criticism analyzes and builds on specific passages, characters, themes, language, etc. from a written work.
Scholarly literary criticism brings the critic's particular theoretical framework, biases, questions, etc to bear upon the text.
There is no one correct scholarly reading of a text. That said, be sure to build your own analysis with examples and support from the written work you're analyzing and the language of the theoretical lens through which you are reading the text.
Use a library database to search for and find scholarly articles.
Remember to limit your search to scholarly (peer-reviewed) journal articles.
To find relevant and useful articles, you will need to consider many more. Remember to try different keywords, subject terms, and multiple databases.
See the illustration below:
Tips:
Be sure to search for articles and books about:
Click on Image to Enlarge.
To find scholarly peer reviewed articles use filters on the left on One Search to select:
Click on Image to Enlarge.
Type in your search terms.
Limit to books from the menu. You can limit to ebooks as well.
The databases on this page have scholarly and non-scholarly content in them.