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

The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines

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

The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems by James Thomson

Death's Jest Book by Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Gothicomantibolisms

131 books — 9 voters

"Something Dreadful and Grand" by Stephen Watt

Best Academic Books on American Literature and Culture Description

1 book — 1 voter

And It Begins Like This by LaTanya McQueen

The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison

The Metamorphosis of Nick Adams by Gentry Thomason

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Writings and Essays Published by African-Americans in Decade: 2010s

33 books — 4 voters

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The Secret Life of a Weight-Obsessed Woman by Iris Ruth Pastor

Books You Could Write a Book About

16 books — 7 voters

A Natural History of the Romance Novel by Pamela Regis

Dangerous Books for Girls by Maya Rodale

Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women by Jayne Ann Krentz

Nonfiction About Romance Fiction

70 books — 36 voters

This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosley

In Search Of Hannah Crafts by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Writings and Essays Published by African-Americans in Decade: 2000s

23 books — 3 voters

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Nonfiction
Criticism

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Quotes Tagged “Literary Criticism”

“ Literary criticism, to be precise, and when pursued beyond the boundaries of academic jargon, directly serves the collective consciousness of humanity! It should be carried out to encourage mass participation in the perusal of serious literature or to find seriousness even in the most playfully written literary works. Extending the hypothesis, every author has a thread or two hidden to conceal the life lessons that are layered beneath the entertaining episodes in the storyline. Readers, at large ...more ”
― Alok Mishra

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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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