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Literature vocabulary · Criticism and Analysis

Literary criticism

Meaning in literature, with examples

nounCore term

In literature, literary criticism means: The study, interpretation and evaluation of literary works, including discussion of their meaning, form, context and value.

In Turkish: edebiyat eleştirisi, yazınsal eleştiri

How it is used

The name of an academic field and of the writing it produces. Literary criticism includes reviews, essays and scholarly books, and is shaped by schools such as formalism, feminism and postcolonialism. A person who writes it is a critic or scholar.

Example sentences

  1. This course introduces the major approaches in twentieth-century literary criticism.

  2. Literary criticism has long ignored many women writers of that period.

Common collocations

  • works of literary criticism
  • feminist literary criticism
  • modern literary criticism
  • a school of literary criticism
  • literary theoryThe study of the ideas and methods used to read and interpret literature, such as structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism and postcolonial theory.
  • interpretationAn explanation of what a text or a part of it means, supported by evidence from the text; also the act of explaining it.
  • literary analysisA close examination of how a literary text works, looking at elements such as theme, character, structure and language to explain its meaning and effects.
  • close readingA careful, detailed reading of a short passage that pays attention to individual words, sounds, images and structure to show how they create meaning.
  • canonThe group of works generally accepted as the most important and influential in a literature, which are widely taught, studied and reprinted.

More terms: Criticism and Analysis

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