Critique a literary selection

based on the following

approaches:
=
 Structuralist/ Formalist

• Structuralism or formalism is an approach in

analyzing and interpreting a selection by looking into
the form of a selection. The critic, one who analyses
the text, will scrutinize the elements such as point of
view, theme, symbol, plot, setting, character,
measure, rhyme, tone, imagery, etc. and how these
create meaning.
 Moralist

• The philosopher Plato debated that literature has the

ability to influence people. With this, moralist approach
in literary criticism judges the value of literature based
on the teachings that can be taken from a literary text.
The role of the critic in this way of analyzing literature is
to look into how the events, characters, themes, symbols,
etc. develop or destroy a person’s value or morality..
 Marxist

• This approach in literary criticism is anchored on the political theory of

Carl Marx. The focus of Marxist criticism is to describe how social class,
economy, money and power play a role in literary selections. The social
class struggles in literature reflect how the low class are being dominated
by the upper class in the society.

• The critic will dig into how the dominant groups exploit the
minority groups in a text and how to redeem the status of said
minority groups.
 Feminist

• Most of the literature in the past were gender-biased due to domination of

male written texts. Feminist criticism tries to change the mostly male-
dominated perspective towards women on literature through the feminist
consciousness

• In this approach, the critic will look into how literature treats women such as
their roles, images, portrayals, character, and characterization. It aims to
uplift the women’s status from a discriminated or silenced one into women
who are equal with men. Its intention is not to overcome the men but both to
have harmony and collaboration.
 Historical

• This approach in literary criticism perceives that each

literary work is a product of its time and its world. It
investigates how a text manifests the attitudes, beliefs, ideas,
and culture of the period it was created. In doing this, the
reader or critic will look into the background of a story or a
poem in order that he or she will understand the text better.
Included in the background are the author, the time it was
written, and the situation at that time.
 Reader-response

• This criticism focuses on what was going on in the mind of the reader
before, during, and after reading. The critic is not interested on the
intention of the author and what kind of text he or she reads. Instead,
the meaning is created based on the reader’s experience while
reading. This mean that there is no single meaning since the reader is
the one producing it. Additionally, a reader’s understanding of a text
may change from time to time due to his or her experiences and
reader’s from different generations, culture, and place can have
different understanding.