CRITICAL APPROACHES
TO LITERATURE
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
1. What do we read?
2. Why do we read?
3. How do we read?
interpreting literature.
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
Critical Approaches to Consider
1. Reader-Response Criticism
2. Formalist Criticism
4. Sociological Criticism
A. Feminist/Gender Criticism
B. Marxist Criticism
5. Biographical Criticism
6. Archetypal Criticism
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
1. The Reader-Response Approach
• asserts that a great deal of meaning in a text lies with
how the reader responds to it.
✓ Focuses on the act of reading and how it affects our perception of meaning in a text (how
we feel at the beginning vs. the end)
✓ Deals more with the process of creating meaning and experiencing a text as we read.
A text is an experience, not an object.
READER + READING SITUATION + TEXT = MEANING
✓ The text is a living thing that lives in the reader’s imagination.
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
REMEMBER!
Reader-Response is concerned with
how the work is viewed by the
audience. In this approach, the
reader creates meaning, not the
author or the work.
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
Reader Response
–Questions to ask for Literary Criticism:
✓How do you feel about this text? Why did you like/dislike it?
✓ Explain how the text connects to an experience you have had.
✓ Why do you think the characters acted as they did?
✓ In a similar situation, how would you have behaved?
✓ Who do you think is the intended reader for this selection?
✓ Create a poem, collage or letter to one of the characters in the
text with whom you most identify. Explain in your piece why you
identify with this character.
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
2. The Formalist Approach
emphasizes the form of a literary work to determine its meaning,
focusing on literary elements and how they work to create meaning.
❑ Examines
a textreadings
as independent
from and
its time
❑ Focuses
on close
of texts
analysis
of theperiod,
effects
of setting,
literary
and techniques
social
andelements
author’s background.
onindependent
the text. entity.
A text is an
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
REMEMBER!
Formalist deals primarily with the text and
not with any of the outside considerations
such as author, the real world, or other
literature. Meaning, formalists argue, is
inherent in the text.
Because meaning is determinant, all
other considerations are irrelevant.
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
Formalism
– Questions to ask for literary criticism:
✓Who is the protagonist?
✓ What conflicts does the protagonist experience?
✓ What is the climax of the story?
✓ What is the protagonist’s role in the climax
✓ How is the setting relevant for this particular story?
✓ What is the theme of the story?
✓ How do character, plot and setting develop the story?
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
3.Sociological Criticism
argues that social contexts (the social environment) must
be considered when analyzing a text.
✓ Focuses on the values of a
society and how those views
are reflected in a text
#IAMAGIFT
✓ Emphasizes the economic,
political, and cultural
issues within literary texts
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
3A. The Marxist Approach
literature is not only a mirror
which reflects society.
emphasizes economic and social conditions. It
But it is also a dynamic
is based on the political theory
of
Karl
Marx
participant in the shaping of a
and Friedrich Engels.
culture.
✓ Concerned with understanding the role of
power, politics, and money in literary texts
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
Marxist
– Questions to ask for Literary Criticism:
✓ What or whose ideological values structure the text?
✓How are these evident?
✓Who has power (and of what sorts) in the texts?
✓How does this power operate and change as the text progresses?
✓What “master” or dominant social narratives are perpetuated or
critiqued and disrupted in the text? (e.g., the American Dream,
whereby, with hard work and individual effort, a poor person can
achieve success)
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
Marxist
– Questions to ask for Literary Criticism:
✓To what degree does the protagonist or other characters believe in and
live by the prevailing social order?
✓At what point do characters recognize the oppressiveness of the
prevailing social order?
✓ How do they respond? What affects their options for changing things?
✓How is social objectification evident and how does it operate in the
text?
✓What are the social forces that affect the author’s writing or the text’s
marketing and reception?
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
3B. The Feminist Approach
is concerned with the role, position, and
influence of women in a literary text.
✓ Asserts that most “literature”
throughout time has been
written by men, for men.
#IAMAGIFT
✓Examines the way that the
female consciousness is
depicted by both male and
female writers.
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
4 Basic
Principles of
Feminist
Criticism
#IAMAGIFT
1. Western civilization is patriarchal.
2. The concepts of gender are mainly cultural
ideas created by patriarchal societies.
3. Patriarchal ideals pervade “literature.”
4. Most “literature” through time has been
gender-biased.
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
Feminist
– Questions to ask for Literary Criticism:
✓ What is the protagonist’s attitude to male and female characters?
✓ How is this evident? How does this affect your response to the characters?
✓ How are women represented in the text?
✓ What roles do men and women play within family, work situations, etc. (hero,
breadwinner, helper, etc.)?
✓ What were the social and historical conditions for women in this period that might
help us understand their roles in the text?
✓ How do women exercise their power in the text? If you were to rewrite the text’s
ending, what would happen to the female protagonist? The male protagonist?
✓ How and to what degree are the women’s lives limited or restricted n this text?
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
5. The Biographical Approach
argues that we must take an author’s life
and background into account when we
study a text.
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
Three Benefits:
1. Facts about an author’s experience can help a reader
decide how to interpret a text.
2. A reader can better appreciate a text by knowing a
writer’s struggles or difficulties in creating that text.
3. A reader can understand a writer’s preoccupation by
studying the way they apply and modify their own life
experiences in their works.
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
6.Archetypal Criticism
✓ is a form of analysis based on the identification and study
of recurring symbolic and mythic patterns.
✓identify how and to what effect patterns from these ancient sources
are used in folk tales, epics, media texts, comics, and other texts.
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
Archetypal
– Questions to ask for Literary Criticism:
✓What is the protagonist’s starting point and end point For the journey that
he/she takes?
✓How does this remind you of journeys taken by other characters in literature?
✓ What greater significance do the settings or situations convey? (E.g. Spring =
rebirth)
✓How does the protagonist link to other protagonists from other texts or real-life
people?
✓What symbols or archetypes remind you of other texts you have read or other
experiences you have had? (E.g. does a man with a black hat in a mystery novel
make you think about how the “bad guys” in Westerns always wear black?)
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
REMEMBER!
• We will never look at a text STRICTLY from one
standpoint or another, ignoring all other views. That is
antithetical to what we are trying to do.
• We should always keep our focus on the text and use
these critical approaches to clarify our understanding of
a text and develop an interpretation of it.
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City
#IAMAGIFT
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY ACADEMY
Quezon St., Central, Mati City