Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature.
Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical
discussion of its methods and goals.
Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have
not always been, theorists.
Whether or not literary criticism should be considered a separate field of inquiry from
literary theory, or conversely from book reviewing, is a matter of some controversy.
For example, the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism draws no distinction
between literary theory and literary criticism, and almost always uses the terms together
to describe the same concept.
Some critics consider literary criticism a practical application of literary theory,
because criticism always deals directly with particular literary works, while theory may
be more general or abstract.
Literary criticism is often published in essay or book form.
Academic literary critics teach in literature departments and publish in academic journals,
and more popular critics publish their criticism in broadly circulating periodicals such as
the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times Book Review, the New York Review of
Books, the London Review of Books, The Nation, and The New Yorker.
History of literary criticism Aristotle's Poetics clearly defines aspects
of literature and introduces many literary terms still used today.
Classical and medieval criticism Literary criticism has probably existed for
as long as literature.
In the 4th century BC Aristotle wrote the Poetics, a typology and description of literary
forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works of art.
Poetics developed for the first time the concepts of mimesis and catharsis, which are still
crucial in literary study.
Plato's attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well.
Around the same time, Bharata Muni, in his Natya Shastra, wrote literary criticism on
ancient Indian literature and Sanskrit drama.
Later classical and medieval criticism often focused on religious texts, and the several
long religious traditions of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a profound influence
on the study of secular texts.
This was particularly the case for the literary traditions of the three Abrahamic religions:
Jewish literature, Christian literature and Islamic literature.
Literary criticism was also employed in other forms of medieval Arabic literature and Arabic
poetry from the 9th century, notably by Al-Jahiz in his al-Bayan wa-'l-tabyin and al-Hayawan,
and by Abdullah ibn al-Mu'tazz in his Kitab al-Badi.
Key texts
Renaissance criticism The literary criticism of the Renaissance
developed classical ideas of unity of form and content into literary neoclassicism, proclaiming
literature as central to culture, entrusting the poet and the author with preservation
of a long literary tradition.
The birth of Renaissance criticism was in 1498, with the recovery of classic texts,
most notably, Giorgio Valla's Latin translation of Aristotle's Poetics.
The work of Aristotle, especially Poetics, was the most important influence upon literary
criticism until the late eighteenth century.
Lodovico Castelvetro was one of the most influential Renaissance critics who wrote commentaries
on Aristotle's Poetics in 1570.
Key texts Lodovico Castelvetro: The Poetics of Aristotle
Translated and Explained Philip Sidney: An Apology for Poetry
Jacopo Mazzoni: On the Defense of the Comedy of Dante
Torquato Tasso: Discourses on the Heroic Poem Francis Bacon: The Advancement of Learning
Henry Reynolds: Mythomystes John Mandaville: Composed in the mid-14th
century--most probably by a french physician Enlightenment criticism
Key texts
19th-century criticism The British Romantic movement of the early
nineteenth century introduced new aesthetic ideas to literary study, including the idea
that the object of literature need not always be beautiful, noble, or perfect, but that
literature itself could elevate a common subject to the level of the sublime.
German Romanticism, which followed closely after the late development of German classicism,
emphasized an aesthetic of fragmentation that can appear startlingly modern to the reader
of English literature, and valued Witz – that is, "wit" or "humor" of a certain sort – more
highly than the serious Anglophone Romanticism.
The late nineteenth century brought renown to authors known more for critical writing
than for their own literary work, such as Matthew Arnold.
Key texts
The New Criticism However important all of these aesthetic movements
were as antecedents, current ideas about literary criticism derive almost entirely from the
new direction taken in the early twentieth century.
Early in the century the school of criticism known as Russian Formalism, and slightly later
the New Criticism in Britain and in the United States, came to dominate the study and discussion
of literature, in the English-speaking world.
Both schools emphasized the close reading of texts, elevating it far above generalizing
discussion and speculation about either authorial intention or reader response.
This emphasis on form and precise attention to "the words themselves" has persisted, after
the decline of these critical doctrines themselves.
Theory In 1957 Northrop Frye published the influential
Anatomy of Criticism.
In his works Frye noted that some critics tend to embrace an ideology, and to judge
literary pieces on the basis of their adherence to such ideology.
This has been a highly influential viewpoint among modern conservative thinkers.
E. Michael Jones, for example, argues in his Degenerate Moderns that Stanley Fish was influenced
by his adulterous affairs to reject classic literature that condemned adultery.
In the British and American literary establishment, the New Criticism was more or less dominant
until the late 1960s.
Around that time Anglo-American university literature departments began to witness a
rise of a more explicitly philosophical literary theory, influenced by structuralism, then
post-structuralism, and other kinds of Continental philosophy.
It continued until the mid-1980s, when interest in "theory" peaked.
Many later critics, though undoubtedly still influenced by theoretical work, have been
comfortable simply interpreting literature rather than writing explicitly about methodology
and philosophical presumptions.
Key 20th-century texts
History of the book Related to other forms of literary criticism,
the history of the book is a field of interdisciplinary inquiry drawing on the methods of bibliography,
cultural history, history of literature, and media theory.
Principally concerned with the production, circulation, and reception of texts and their
material forms, book history seeks to connect forms of textuality with their material aspects.
Among the issues within the history of literature with which book history can be seen to intersect
are: the development of authorship as a profession, the formation of reading audiences, the constraints
of censorship and copyright, and the economics of literary form.
The current state of literary criticism Today interest in literary theory and Continental
philosophy coexists in university literature departments with a more conservative literary
criticism of which the New Critics would probably have approved.
Disagreements over the goals and methods of literary criticism, which characterized both
sides taken by critics during the "rise" of theory, have declined.
Many critics feel that they now have a great plurality of methods and approaches from which
to choose.
Some critics work largely with theoretical texts, while others read traditional literature;
interest in the literary canon is still great, but many critics are also interested in minority
and women's literatures, while some critics influenced by cultural studies read popular
texts like comic books or pulp/genre fiction.
Ecocritics have drawn connections between literature and the natural sciences.
Darwinian literary studies studies literature in the context of evolutionary influences
on human nature.
Many literary critics also work in film criticism or media studies.
Some write intellectual history; others bring the results and methods of social history
to bear on reading literature.
Questions to the value of academic criticism The value of literary criticism has been questioned
by some prominent artists.
Vladimir Nabokov argued that good readers don't read books, and particularly literary
masterpieces, "for the academic purpose of indulging in generalizations".
Stephen J. Joyce, grandson of James Joyce, at a 1986 academic conference of Joyceans
in Copenhagen, said “If my grandfather was here, he would have died laughing ... Dubliners
and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man can be picked up, read, and enjoyed by virtually
anybody without scholarly guides, theories, and intricate explanations, as can Ulysses,
if you forget about all the hue and cry."
And he questioned whether anything has been added to the legacy of Joyce's art by the
261 books of literary criticism stored in the Library of Congress.
See also Literary critics
Comparative Literature Genre studies
History of the Book Literary translation
Poetic tradition Philosophy and literature
Translation criticism References
External links
Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Literary Criticism
Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism Award Winners
Internet Public Library: Literary Criticism Collection of Critical and Biographical Websites
A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology