Critical Approaches to

Literature
 Critical Approaches
-used to analyze, question, interpret,
synthesize and evaluate literary
works, with a specific mindset or
“lenses”
 New Criticism

-contend that literature needs little or no

connection with the author’s intentions,
life, or social/historical situation
-everything needed to analyze the work is
contained within the text
-examines language and literary
conventions; plot, rhyme, meter, dialect,
setting, point of view, etc.
 Reader-Response Criticism
-studies the interaction of the
reader with the text; holds
the text incomplete until it is
read
-examines the readers
reactions and thoughts to a
piece of work
Biographical Criticism
-relates the author’s life and
thoughts to their work
-allows one to better
understand the elements
within a work as well as
relate works to authorial
intention and audience
Narratological
Criticism
-concerns itself with the structure of
narrative; how events are
constructed and through what point
of view
-considers the narrator not necessarily
as a person, but more as a window
through which one sees a
constructed reality
 Historical Criticism
-perspectives tend to
reflect a concern with
the period in which a
text is produced and/or
read
 Social Criticism
-recognizes literature as a reflection of
the environment through analysis of
social structure, power, politics, and
agency
 Gender/Feminist Criticism
-addresses issues of
masculinity and
femininity as
binaries, sexual
orientation,
heterosexism, and
differences in sexes
 Anthropological Criticism
-focuses on aspects of
everyday life in various
cultures; using ideas of
folklore, ritual,
celebrations, traditions,
etc.
Psychoanalytical
Criticism
-aims at uncovering the workings of the
human mind especially that expression of
the unconscious
-analyzing a text like a dream, looking for
symbolism and repressed meaning, the
dominance of unconscious mine of the
conscious
-can be applied to either the author/text
relationship or the reader/text relationship