Overview of Literary Criticism: Ideas on How to Find Topics for Your Research Paper

There are a number of critical approaches to interpreting literature. Specializing in one of these forms of criticism will help you focus your reading and help you construct well supported essays. This article will give you a brief overview of some of those approaches.

Historical Criticism

During the nineteenth century, the growing faith in science influenced both literature and the interpretation of literature. Historical criticism became a popular approach. Historical criticism emphasizes the social and cultural environment that surrounds a work. Influenced by the philosophical outlook of an era, literature can be grouped into periods or movements which demonstrate common methods of composition and subject matter. Historical criticism is responsible for terms like neoclassicism, romanticism, modernism and is generally the method used to categorize literature in anthologies.

Historical criticism has several goals including the study of a particular culture and the evolution of literary tradition. Historical criticism attempts to understand literary references in the context of the environment in which they were written since both language and taboos change overtime.

Biographical Criticism

Closely related to historical criticism, biographical criticism studies how an individual author's life and thoughts influence a work. This approach is particularly useful when a work is ahead of its time or seems to breach two historical periods. Biographical criticism is not the attempt to draw parallels between the author's life and his fiction, but rather a study of the author's intention and audience.

Biographical criticism seeks to illuminate the deeper meaning of themes, conflicts, characters, settings and literary allusions based on the author's own concerns and conflicts. One drawback to this approach is the reliance of source material that may not be accurate or complete. How reliable is the biography? How objective is the autobiography?

Social Criticism