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