Sunday 18 November 2018

What is Literary Criticism?

(This write-up got published in ThinkLet Journal, Jain University, in the November 2018 issue.)

“Read not to contradict, and confute; not to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others are to be swallowed, some few to be chewed and digested.”
- Francis Bacon


It is important to understand ‘criticism’ before pinning down on defining ‘literary criticism’. There are two ways of reading a text, one is to simply read and move on to the next text, and the other is to read the given text and evaluate. In both the cases, readers frame their impressions, however, it is a little vague and abstract in the former, and quite accounted for in the latter. Criticism calls for a trained judgment, therefore, its genesis is in questioning. Nothing remains sacrosanct to criticism, and it subjects everything to the closest scrutiny.

Literary theory and literary criticism are terms used quite interchangeably. There is an overlap in what each of them intend to do. The differentiating aspect is that literary theory compiles a set of principles, and is usually general, while literary criticism is practical application and focuses on individual texts. Literary criticism refers to the analysis and interpretation of a given text, which takes into account the nature and function of literature and literary theory, to arrive at an evaluative judgment. A judgment of this sort comes through comprehending a text by applying intrinsic and extrinsic criticism, where the former examines if meanings are naturally there within the text and the latter investigates if meanings are made with extraneous variables such as social, economic and political.

Literary criticism attempts to investigate the structural and thematic design of a literary text, and also examines the text in its contexts. This provides a different perspective of looking at the given text, and which invariably allows the text to grow inviting more questions and thorough judgments.

1 comment:

  1. Its always reading pleasure to read your writings. Need time to write my comments.

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