🏠 Education Hub > 📚 Literature > 🎓 Literary Criticism

🎓 Literary Criticism & Theory

Explore different approaches to analyzing and interpreting literature

📚 Major Critical Theories

Click on each theory to learn more about its approach to literary analysis:

🔍 Formalist Criticism

Focus: Text structure, literary devices, and form

Key Question: How do the formal elements create meaning?

  • Close reading techniques
  • Analysis of imagery and symbolism
  • Examination of structure and style

👤 Biographical Criticism

Focus: Author's life and its influence on the work

Key Question: How does the author's life inform the text?

  • Historical context of author's life
  • Personal experiences in the work
  • Author's beliefs and values

🏛️ Historical Criticism

Focus: Social, cultural, and historical context

Key Question: How does the historical period shape the work?

  • Political and social conditions
  • Cultural movements and ideas
  • Contemporary events and issues

♀️ Feminist Criticism

Focus: Gender roles, women's experiences, and power

Key Question: How are gender and power portrayed?

  • Female character representation
  • Gender role examination
  • Women's voices and agency

🧠 Psychological Criticism

Focus: Characters' mental states and motivations

Key Question: What psychological forces drive the characters?

  • Character psychology analysis
  • Freudian and Jungian concepts
  • Unconscious desires and fears

👁️ Reader-Response Criticism

Focus: Reader's interpretation and experience

Key Question: How do readers create meaning?

  • Individual reader interpretation
  • Cultural background influence
  • Active meaning-making process

🔬 Interactive Text Analysis

Analyze this excerpt from "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman using different critical approaches:

"The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off—the paper—in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions."

Analysis Results

Select a critical approach above to analyze the text.

💡 Thesis Statement Generator

Build a strong thesis statement for your literary analysis essay:

📝 Your Thesis Statement:

💡 Remember to develop this thesis with specific examples and analysis in your essay body paragraphs.

📄 Critical Essay Structure

Click on each section to get guidance on building your literary analysis essay:

📝 Introduction

📖 Body Paragraph 1

📚 Body Paragraph 2

🎯 Conclusion

🧠 Literary Criticism Quiz

Question 1: Which critical approach focuses primarily on the formal elements of a text?

A) Formalist criticism
B) Biographical criticism
C) Historical criticism
D) Reader-response criticism