About Literary Analysis

Literary analysis is the practice of reading a work of literature with a critical eye rather than for mere entertainment. A literary analysis should provide an interpretation of the work based on one of the multiple schools of literary criticism.

History

Literary analysis has existed since ancient times, although it was only in the 20th century that anyone could actually make a living solely by critically examining the works of others. The earliest known examples of literary analysis appeared during the Hellenistic period, and many of these works provide the foundation for the contemporary schools. Representative works of early literary analysis include Aristotle's "Poetics" and "On the Sublime," by Longinus.

History

For most of the history of literary analysis, the primary focus revolved around the attempt to penetrate through to the author's intent in putting words to paper. Literary analysis really meant authorial analysis. What was the author trying to say? For this reason, the background and biography of the author could potentially be just as important to the analysis as the work itself. Twentieth-century literary analysis upended this tradition by placing the emphasis on analyzing the work alone.

Types

New criticism was the term given to the style of literary analysis that took hold in America and England during the 1920s. New criticism did away with placing any emphasis on an attempt to understand the intent or motivation of an author. The rise of Freudian psychoanalysis and the revelation that a great deal of human intent is subconscious and unknown. If the author did not even know what his intent was, how could anyone attempting to analyze it know?

Types

Reader response is another type of literary analysis that become hugely popular during the 20th century. Reader response developed in Germany and America and differs from new criticism and the traditional school of analysis through an insistence that there can be no authentically objective reading of a text. Every reader brings to a work of literature his own unique cultural perspective. This perspective informs, even if only subconsciously, the manner in which the text is analyzed.

Types

As Freudian psychoanalysis has gone out of style in the world of psychology, it remains one of the most useful methods of analyzing a text. Part of the reason for its continued popularity, especially among students, is the ease with which it can be used. Psychological literary analysis has been used for everything from applying an Oedipal complex to Hamlet, to the search for the psychological trauma that turned Hannibal Lecter into a monster.

Types

Marxist literary analysis applies the Marxian dictate that all of world history is the result of an economic struggle between those who own the means of production and laborers. The stated purpose of Marxist literary analysis is to determine whether a work is progressive or reactionary, but one need not have an agenda. It is entirely possible, and very often quite easy, to analyze using Marxist techniques to discover whether the events in the novel are driven by social warfare.

Types

Feminist theory is a type of literary analysis that, like Marxist theory, focuses on a social conflict as being the engine that drives the thematic value of the story. Feminist theory is concerned with illuminating the underlying cause of social conflict in terms of sexual inequality and the politics of gender determination. Most feminist theory situates analysis within the world of patriarchal authority, against which female characters either rebel or remain oppressed.