Literary Criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed 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 thinking and Criticism draws no distinction between lit ...more

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Literary Criticism Books

Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

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The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

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Lists

Literary Movements for Students by David M. Galens

The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions by Andrew Delahunty

The Situation of Poetry by Robert Pinsky

A Scholar’s Guide to English Literature

73 books — 1 voter

The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlac Glyer

Best Books Related to C. S. Lewis

129 books — 29 voters

Poetic Form and British Romanticism by Stuart Curran

The Feminization Debate in Eighteenth-Century England by E.J. Clery

Anna Seward and the End of the Eighteenth Century by Claudia T. Kairoff

Inspiring scholars

7 books — 1 voter

The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones

A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett

Traveler of Worlds by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

Speculative Fiction: Literary Criticism, Essays, Non-Fiction

130 books — 29 voters

The Annotated Alice - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Th... by Lewis Carroll

Annotated Editions and Commentaries on Novels

2 books — 1 voter

Langston Hughes by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Zora Neale Hurston by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Writings and Essays Published by African-Americans in Decade: 1990s

16 books — 2 voters

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Quotes Tagged “Literary Criticism”

“ A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under ...more ”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Summer Moonshine

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“ Life, of course, never gets anyone's entire attention. Death always remains interesting, pulls us, draws us. As sleep is necessary to our physiology, so depression seems necessary to our psychic economy. In some secret way, Thanatos nourishes Eros as well as opposes it. The two principles work in covert concert; though in most of us Eros dominates, in none of us is Thanatos completely subdued. However-and this is the paradox of suicide-to take one's life is to behave in a more active, assertive, Life, of course, never gets anyone's entire attention. Death always remains interesting, pulls us, draws us. As sleep is necessary to our physiology, so depression seems necessary to our psychic economy. In some secret way, Thanatos nourishes Eros as well as opposes it. The two principles work in covert concert; though in most of us Eros dominates, in none of us is Thanatos completely subdued. However-and this is the paradox of suicide-to take one's life is to behave in a more active, assertive, "erotic" way than to helplessly watch as one's life is taken away from one by inevitable mortality. Suicide thus engages with both the death-hating and the death-loving parts of us: on some level, perhaps, we may envy the suicide even as we pity him. It has frequently been asked whether the poetry of Plath would have so aroused the attention of the world if Plath had not killed herself. I would agree with those who say no. The death-ridden poems move us and electrify us because of our knowledge of what happened. Alvarez has observed that the late poems read as if they were written posthumously, but they do so only because a death actually took place. "When I am talking about the weather / I know what I am talking about," Kurt Schwitters writes in a Dada poem (which I have quoted in its entirety). When Plath is talking about the death wish, she knows what she is talking about. In 1966, Anne Sexton, who committed suicide eleven years after Plath, wrote a poem entitled "Wanting to Die," in which these startlingly informative lines appear: But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build. When, in the opening of "Lady Lazarus," Plath triumphantly exclaims, "I have done it again," and, later in the poem, writes, Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call, we can only share her elation. We know we are in the presence of a master builder. ...more ”
― Janet Malcolm, The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

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