Literary Criticism/Introduction

Traditional literary criticism is a system of analyzing, reviewing, and critiquing a work of literature. Literary criticism in practice is typically performed from the perspective of a particular school of critical thought. The purpose is to analyze a work's relevance and quality from that school's 'viewpoint'. The major schools of literary criticism include, but are not limited to: formal criticism, historical criticism, psychological criticism, and archetypal criticism. Each of these schools addresses the subject in a different manner, and are usually taught individually. However, there are certain underlying skills associated with all literary criticism which it is helpful to understand before learning about the methods and concerns of each of the schools.