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"Critical Approaches to Literature" is reprinted with permission from Stacy Tartar Esch, adjunct English instructor, West Chester University of Pennsylvania; website: http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2002/ critical-approaches.html. Tartar Esch summarizes materials in Michael Meyer's The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature (Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 6th ed, 2003). His work includes several more categories that aren't summarized here. Minor changes have been made to spelling and punctuation to fit ATA style.
It is inevitable that people will ponder, discuss, and analyze the works of art that interest them.
-X J Kennedy and Dana Gioia
Standard critical thinking tools, so useful in many modern enterprises, are readily adaptable to the study of literature. In the course of pondering, analyzing and discussing literary works, it is possible to analyze, question, interpret, synthesize and evaluate them. Literary criticism is the field of study that systematizes this sort of activity, and several critical approaches to literature are possible. Some of the more popular ones, along with their basic tenats, are listed below:
Forma list Criticism
1. Literature is a form of knowledge with intrinsic elements-style, structure, imagery, tone, genre.
2. What gives a literary work status as art, or as a great work of art, is how all of its elements work together to create the reader's total experience (thought, feeling, gut reaction and so on).
3. The appreciation of literature as an art requires close reading-a careful, step-by-step analysis...