Roger Don SJ Cerda

CRITICAL APPROACHES IN STUDYING LITERATURE

CRITICISM, ANALYSIS, EVALUATION

 They facilitate in the construction of meaning

as entrenched in time and culture
 They will help you unfurl the meaning of the text
by unearthing the link between the author and
his work as well as the readers and the text
 These will guide you in describing how a piece
of literature moves the reader
 Reader-Response

MORAL/INTELLECTUAL MARXISM

DECONSTRUCTION FEMINISM

HISTORICAL-BIOGRAPHICAL QUEER THEORY

FORMALISM
1. READER-RESPONSE APPROACH

 Establishes the
interaction between the
reader and the piece of
literature
 Each text is an organic
unity, meaning, the text
itself has meaning
independent from its
creator
2. MARXISM

 KARL MARX
Class conflicts

Social, economic and political

inequalities

Structural violence

Quest for justice and equality

3. FEMINISM

 Examines the
subjugation of
women in the
society and how
they were
personified in
literature
4. QUEER THEORY

 Scrutinizes,  It advocates recognition

problematizes and of both homosexuals and
criticizes the role of lesbians as sexual
gender in literature preferences or identities
not deviant to what we
consider as normal and
natural
It confronts the concept of normative sexualities as
types
of SOCIAL STRUCTURES and SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS
which
delineate our ideas about SEXUALITY AS AN ACT
and SEXUALITY
AS AN IDENTITY where a man is expected to be
attracted to
a woman and vice versa.
5. FORMALISM

 Focuses on the inherent

features of a text
 It capitalizes on form
rather than content
6. HISTORICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH

 Embraces the idea that

text and author are
inseparable
 Enables the reader to
have greater knowledge
from which to draw
conclusion by
understanding the way
of life on a certain time
period
7. DECONSTRUCTION

 A text is not a
disconnected whole but
contains numerous
conflicting meanings
 Any text has more than
one interpretation
8. MORAL/INTELLECTUAL APPROACH

 Concerns itself with the

content and values of
the text
 Determines if the text is
significant in the
reader’s well-being
LITERARY CRITICISM