Literary Criticism Approaches

Grade 12 · English · Study Guide

Learn the major schools of literary criticism and how each lens shapes the interpretation of texts.

Literary criticism is the practice of analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating literary works. Different critical lenses highlight different dimensions of a text, each revealing meaning that another approach might miss.

Formalism (New Criticism) examines the text itself — its language, structure, imagery, and irony — without reference to external context. Close reading is its primary method. In contrast, Historical/New Historicism situates a text within its social and political context, asking how power structures, events, and ideologies shaped its creation and reception.

Psychoanalytic criticism, drawing on Freud and Lacan, explores characters' unconscious motivations, symbols rooted in desire and repression, and the author's psychological state. Feminist criticism examines how gender is constructed, how female characters are represented, and whose voices are centered or marginalized.

Marxist criticism analyzes class struggle, economic power, and ideology in texts, asking who benefits from the social order a work depicts. Post-colonial criticism examines how literature reflects, resists, or perpetuates colonialism and its legacy on identity and culture.

Finally, Reader-Response theory shifts focus to the reader: meaning is not fixed in the text but co-created in the act of reading. Each approach is a tool — sophisticated readers deploy multiple lenses to build richer interpretations.

Key terms

Formalism
A critical approach focusing on literary structure, language, and technique independent of historical or biographical context.
New Historicism
Reading literature in light of its historical and cultural context, treating the text as both a product and a producer of ideology.
Psychoanalytic Criticism
Applying Freudian and Lacanian concepts — the unconscious, repression, desire — to literary characters and texts.
Feminist Criticism
Analyzing how gender shapes narrative, representation, and power within literary works.
Post-Colonial Criticism
Examining literature through the lens of colonialism, imperialism, and their cultural and psychological effects.

Flashcards

Formalism / New Criticism
Focuses on the text alone — structure, diction, imagery, paradox — ignoring author biography or historical context.
Historicism / New Historicism
Reads texts as products of their historical moment; examines power, ideology, and cultural context.
Psychoanalytic Criticism
Applies Freudian concepts (unconscious, id/ego/superego, repression, symbolism) to characters and narratives.
Feminist Criticism
Analyzes gender dynamics, patriarchal structures, and how women are represented or silenced in literature.
Marxist Criticism
Examines class conflict, ideology, and economic forces as drivers of narrative and character in literary texts.
Post-Colonial Criticism
Interrogates how colonialism and its aftermath shape identity, culture, and narrative in literature.
Reader-Response Theory
Asserts that meaning is constructed in the interaction between reader and text, not fixed by the author.
Deconstruction
A post-structuralist approach that exposes internal contradictions and unstable meanings within texts.

Questions

  1. A critic who focuses exclusively on a poem's meter, imagery, and irony without considering the author's biography is using which approach?

    1. Marxist criticism
    2. Formalism / New Criticism
    3. Reader-Response theory
    4. Post-colonial criticism
    Show answer

    Answer: Formalism / New Criticism

    Formalism (New Criticism) focuses solely on the text's internal elements — language, structure, imagery — without external biographical or historical context.

  2. Feminist criticism is exclusively concerned with works written by women.

    Show answer

    Answer: False

    Feminist criticism examines gender representation and power dynamics in any text, regardless of the author's gender. It can analyze works by male or female authors.

  3. Which critical approach would most likely analyze the depiction of social class and economic inequality in Charles Dickens's novels?

    1. Psychoanalytic criticism
    2. Formalism
    3. Marxist criticism
    4. New Historicism
    Show answer

    Answer: Marxist criticism

    Marxist criticism analyzes class, economic power, and social inequality in literature. Dickens's novels, rich with class commentary, are classic subjects for this approach.

  4. The critical approach that argues meaning is created by the reader rather than residing solely in the text is called ___ theory.

    Show answer

    Answer: reader-response

    Reader-Response theory, associated with critics like Stanley Fish and Wolfgang Iser, holds that texts have no fixed meaning — meaning is completed by the reader's experience.

  5. Chinua Achebe's essay critiquing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for its portrayal of Africa is an example of which critical lens?

    1. Formalism
    2. Psychoanalytic criticism
    3. Post-colonial criticism
    4. Feminist criticism
    Show answer

    Answer: Post-colonial criticism

    Achebe's critique focuses on how Conrad's representation of Africa reflects and perpetuates colonial ideology — the defining concern of post-colonial criticism.

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