Literary Criticism

As Humpty Dumpty says, in order to find the meaning behind words you must decide who is to be master. Schools of literary criticism identify different "masters of meaning."

Reader-Response Criticism
The reader is the master of meaning
"The meaning of the text interacts with my personal experience."
My gut reaction to the work is...

Historical/Biographical Criticism
The author and authorial context are masters of meaning
"This text means whatever I (the author) intended it to mean, in the context of my times and my original audience."
Our knowledge of the author and his times/audience compels us to see...

Feminist Criticism
The context of gender is the master of meaning
"Gender is universal to the human experience, and it is high time we focus on the feminine as we have heretofore focused on the masculine."
The representation of gender in this work reveals that...

Freudian/Psychological Criticism
The context of the human mind is the master of meaning
"The human mind is the source of all meaning, and we must analyze its conscious thought as well as its subconscious thought, for instance, dreams."
The subconscious messages in this work which must be brought to light are...

Marxist Criticism
The context of economic politics is the master of meaning
"The power to get the stuff we need and want -- that's what shapes the human experience, and literature ultimately reveals the dynamics of class power struggles."
The representation of class in this work reveals that...

Archetypal Criticism
The context of human universals are the master of meaning
"All literature is a reflection of universal human impulses, and therefore we most earnestly seek to identify the presence of archetypes."
The archetypes present in the work comment on the universal human condition in that...

Theological/Biblical Criticism
The context of God, particularly the Biblical God, is the master of meaning
"All truth is God's truth, and the center of his truth is the need of redemption for a sinful world."
This work reflects the reality of sin and the need for redemption in that...

Deconstruction
There is no context for absolute meaning
"Since there is no such thing as absolute meaning, this work, at some level, can be rendered meaningless."
Elements of this text which are contradictory include ... and therefore cancel out an absolute meaning for the text as a whole.

Formal/New Criticism (Close Reading)
The text alone is the master of meaning
"I (the text) am complete and unified. Look closely and discover my meaning."
The text is characterized and/or unified by...

Close reading is the type of analysis you do on an A.P. timed write or in a Schaffer-format style analysis. Cleanth Brooks was the central figure in New Criticism (it was once considered "new," as opposed to traditional historical criticism). It grew out of a need to teach students about poetry, that a poem's format and content cannot be separated. To paraphrase a poem is to rob it of its character and meaning. We must closely analyze every concrete detail of the poem in order to seize upon that meaning. All the subtleties of word choice, irony, paradox, and ambiguity merge within the poem -- they come together in a complete and unified manner which is unique to the poem. Close readings therefore depend on staying strictly and concretely in the text, drawing all the technical elements of the poem together until you unlock the unified essence of the work.