APPROACHES IN LITERARY CRITICISM

1. Formalist Criticism
• This approach regards literature as “a unique form of human knowledge that needs to be examined on its
own terms.” All the elements necessary for understanding the work are contained within the work itself.
• Of particular interest to the formalist critic are the elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.—
that are found within the text. A primary goal for formalist critics is to determine how such elements work
together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.

2. Gender Criticism
• This approach “examines how sexual identity influences the creation and reception of literary works.”
• Originally an offshoot of feminist movements, gender criticism today includes a number of approaches,
including the so-called “masculinist” approach recently advocated by poet Robert Bly.
• The bulk of gender criticism, however, is feminist and takes as a central precept that the patriarchal attitudes
that have dominated western thought have resulted, consciously or unconsciously, in literature “full of
unexamined ‘male-produced’ assumptions.”
• Feminist criticism attempts to correct this imbalance by analyzing and combatting such attitudes—by
questioning, for example, why none of the characters in Shakespeare’s play Othello ever challenge the right
of a husband to murder a wife accused of adultery.
• Other goals of feminist critics include “analyzing how sexual identity influences the reader of a text” and
“examining how the images of men and women in imaginative literature reflect or reject the social forces
that have historically kept the sexes from achieving total equality.”

3. Historical Criticism
• This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by investigating the social, cultural, and intellectual
context that produced it—a context that necessarily includes the artist’s biography and milieu.”
• A key goal for historical critics is to understand the effect of a literary work upon its original readers.

4. Reader-Response Criticism
• This approach takes as a fundamental tenet that “literature” exists NOT as an artifact upon a printed page
but as a transaction between the physical text and the mind of a reader.
• It attempts “to describe what happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a text” and reflects that
reading, like writing, is a creative process.

5. Media Criticism
• It is the act of closely examining and judging the media.
• When we examine the media and various media stories, we often find instances of media bias.
o Media bias
➢ The perception that the media is reporting the news in a partial or prejudiced manner.
➢ Occurs when the media seems to push a specific viewpoint, rather than reporting the news
objectively.
➢ Keep in mind that media bias also occurs when the media seems to ignore an important aspect
of the story.
APPROACHES IN LITERARY CRITICISM
6. Marxist Criticism
• It focuses on the economic and political elements of art, often emphasizing the ideological content of
literature.
• It often argues that all art is political, either challenging or endorsing (by silence) the status quo.
• It is frequently evaluative and judgmental, a tendency that “can lead to reductive judgment, as when Soviet
critics rated Jack London better than William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton, and Henry James,
because he illustrated the principles of class struggle more clearly.”
• Nonetheless, Marxist criticism “can illuminate political and economic dimensions of literature other
approaches overlook.”

7. Structural Criticism
• It focuses on how human behavior is determined by social, cultural and psychological structures.
• It tended to offer a single unified approach to human life that would embrace all disciplines.
• The essence of structuralism is the belief that “things cannot be understood in isolation, they have to be
seen in the context of larger structures which contain them.
• For example, the structuralist analysis of Donne’s poem, Good Morrow, demands more focus on the relevant
genre, the concept of courtly love, rather than on the close reading of the formal elements of the text.

8. Biographical Criticism
• With this type of criticism, popular throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the author—and
the author’s intent—are the targets of our analysis.
• We read the text in tandem with the author’s life, searching for clues about what the author meant within
the words of the text and life events. Throughout most of literary history, this is what we meant when we
talked about literary criticism or literary analysis.

9. Sociological Criticism
• It focuses on the relationship between literature and society, the social function of literature.
• Literature is always produced in a social context. Writers may affirm or criticize the values of the society
in which they live, but they write for an audience and that audience is society.

To summarize:

• Formalist – structure of the text itself

• Gender – feminist and masculinist
• Historical – past social, cultural, and intellectual context
• Reader-response – personal thoughts as a reader
• Media – press objectivity and bias
• Marxist – socioeconomic and political status
• Structural – human behavior through social, cultural, and psychological aspects
• Biographical – author, his/her intentions and life
• Sociological – values of the society
APPROACHES IN LITERARY CRITICISM
QUESTIONS RELATED TO THE DIFFERENT APPROACHES IN LITERARY CRITICISM

1. Formalist Criticism
• How is the work’s structure unified?
• How do various elements of the work reinforce its meaning?
• What recurring patterns (repeated or related words, images, etc.) can you find? What is the effect of
these patterns or motifs?
• What figures of speech are used? (metaphors, similes, hyperbole, personification, etc.)
• Is there a relationship between the beginning and the end of the story?

2. Gender Criticism
• How do male and female characters relate to one another? Are these relationships sources of conflict?
Are these conflicts resolved?
• What marital expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do these expectations have?
• What behavioral expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do these expectations have?
• How do the images of women in the story reflect patriarchal social forces that have impeded women’s
efforts to achieve full equality with men?
• If a female character were male, how would the story be different (and vice versa)?

3. Historical Criticism
• How does it reflect the time in which it was written?
• How accurately does the story depict the time in which it is set?
• What literary or historical influences helped to shape the form and content of the work?
• How does the story reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the time in which it was written or set? (Think
beliefs and attitudes related to race, religion, politics, gender, society, philosophy, etc.)
• Does the story reveal or contradict the prevailing values of the time in which it was written? Does it
provide an opposing view of the period’s prevailing values?

4. Reader-response Criticism
• How do your values alter your perceptions of the text?
• How have readers in different time periods or of different ages interpreted the text?
• How is the informed reader’s response to the text shaped by the reader and the text?
• Which of your personal experiences or memories is affecting your perceptions of the story?
• What was the work’s original intended audience? To what extend are you similar or different from that
audience?

5. Media Criticism
• Who created this media text, and what is their purpose?
• What techniques are used to attract and maintain the audience’s attention?
• How does the medium (e.g., film, television, social media) shape the message being conveyed?
• What implicit or explicit biases are present in the media text?
• How does this media text represent different social groups, and what stereotypes are reinforced or
challenged?
APPROACHES IN LITERARY CRITICISM
6. Marxist Criticism
• What is the role of class in the said literary work?
• How do the protagonists/characters fight against oppression?
• Does the work advocate for Marxist values (whether implicitly or explicitly) or does the work oppose
them?
• How is oppression discussed by the work; are impeding issues in society brushed aside or are they
condemned elsewhere?
• Are there any proposed idealistic answers to the issues faced in the literary work?

7. Structural Criticism
• What are the key structural elements of the text (e.g., plot, character roles, setting)?
• How does the text follow or challenge traditional narrative structures (e.g., Freytag’s pyramid, three-act
structure)?
• What binary oppositions (e.g., good vs. evil, nature vs. culture) are present in the text?
• How do character archetypes contribute to the overall meaning of the work?
• How do different structural elements (e.g., narration, dialogue, description) interact to shape meaning?

8. Biographical Criticism
• What aspects of the author’s personal life are relevant to this story?
• Which of the author’s stated beliefs are reflected in the work?
• Does the writer challenge or reflect the values of her contemporaries?
• What seem to be the author’s major concerns? Do they reflect any of the writer’s personal experiences?
• Do any of the events in the story correspond to events experienced by the author?

9. Sociological Criticism
• What is the relationship between the characters and their society?
• Does the story address societal issues, such as race, gender, and class?
• Does the work challenge or affirm the social order it depicts?
• How does the microcosm (small world) of the story reflect the macrocosm (large world) of the society in
which it was composed?
• Do any of the characters correspond to types of government, such as a dictatorship, democracy,
communism, socialism, fascism, etc.? What attitudes toward these political structures/systems are
expressed in the work?