CRITICAL APRROACHES IN WRITING A CRITIQUE

Critical Approaches

 Critical Approaches are different perspectives we consider when looking at a piece of literature.
 They seek to give us answers to these questions, in addition to aiding us in interpreting
literature.
1. What do we read?
2. Why do we read?
3. How do we read?

Literary Criticism

 A way of talking about literature.

 The lens through which we like to examine literature.
 For example: People who believe that understanding the author’s life can help readers better
understand his/her work, often use Biographical Criticism

KINDS OF APPROACHES

A. Reader-based
 Literature does not exist separate from those who read it.
 An individual’s background and feelings are part of how they read and interpret literature.
B. Text-based
 Primarily look at the work itself, separate from context in which it was written or who wrote
it.
C. Context-based
 Examines the context in which a work was produced.

CRITICAL APPROACHES IN WRITING A CRITIQUE

1. Reader-Response Approach
 Focuses on the reader and his or her experience of a literary work.
 A text is an experience, not an object.
 READER + READING SITUATION + TEXT = MEANING
2. Feminist Approach
 It is concerned with the role, position, and influence of women in a literary text.
  Focuses on female representation in literature, paying attention to female points of view,
concerns, and values.
3. Queer Theory
 Combined area of gay and lesbian studies and criticism.
 Emphasis on dismantling the key binary oppositions of Western culture: male/ female,
heterosexual/ homosexual, etc. by which the first category is assigned privilege, power, and
centrality, while the second is derogated, subordinated, and marginalized.

4. Formalist Approach
 It is the relation of theme to style.
 a unique form of human knowledge that needs to be examined on its own terms.
 Seeks to examine a work in isolation from:
a. the reader,
b. the author,
c. the context in which it was written
5. Marxist Approach
 Emphasizes economic and social conditions.
 It is based on the political theory of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
 Critics examine the relationship of a literary product to the actual economic and social
reality of its time and place.
6. Historical Approach
 The relationship of the work to history.
1. Social / political history;
2. Literary history (the development of the literary tradition)
 Perspectives tend to reflect a concern with the period in which a text is produced and/or
read.
7. Psychological Approach
 What the work tells us about the human mind.
 Literature is a tool of psychoanalysis.
 The critic might look at a character’s psychological make-up, sanity, etc.
8. Biographical Approach
 The relationship of the writer's life to the work.
  Facts about an author’s experience can help a reader decide how to interpret a text.
 A reader can better appreciate a text by knowing a writer’s struggles or difficulties in
creating that text.
9. New Criticism
 A detailed consideration of the work itself as an independent entity. Emphasis on “the
words on the page.”
 Focuses on the “autonomy of the work as existing for its own sake,” analysis of words,
figures of speech, and symbols.
 Everything needed to analyze the work is contained within the text.
10. Deconstruction
 Focuses on the practice of reading a text in order to “subvert” or “undermine” the
assumption that the text can be interpreted coherently to have a universal determinate
meaning.
 Typically, it closely examine the conflicting forces/meanings within the text in order to show
that the text has an indefinite array of possible readings/significations.
11. Mythic Approach
 The recurrent universal patterns underlying most literary works.
 Critics tend to emphasize the mythical patterns in literature, such as the death-rebirth
theme and journey of the hero.
 Carl Jung- “archetype”-symbols or situations that evoke universal response
12. Cultural Approach
 It examines the text from the perspective of cultural attitudes and often focuses on
individuals within society who are marginalized or face discrimination in some way.
 May consider race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality or other characteristics that
separate individuals in society and potentially lead to one feeling or being treated as “less
than” another.
13. Modernism/ Post-Modernism
 Modernism is a rejection of traditional forms of literature (chronological plots, continuous
narratives, closed endings etc.) in favor of experimental forms.
 Post-Modernists follow the same principles but celebrate the new forms of fragmentation
rather than lamenting them.
 Look for ironies within a text.