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Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. [1] Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history , moral philosophy, social philosophy, and interdisciplinary themes relevant to how people interpret meaning . [ 1 ]
Psychoanalytic literary criticism is literary criticism or literary theory that, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalytic reading has been practiced since the early development of psychoanalysis itself, and has developed into a heterogeneous interpretive tradition.
A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's goals and methods. Although the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always ...
Archetypal literary criticism is a type of analytical theory that interprets a text by focusing on recurring myths and archetypes (from the Greek archē, "beginning", and typos, "imprint") in the narrative, symbols, images, and character types in literary works.
Semiotic literary criticism, also called literary semiotics, is the approach to literary criticism informed by the theory of signs or semiotics.Semiotics, tied closely to the structuralism pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure, was extremely influential in the development of literary theory out of the formalist approaches of the early twentieth century.
Marxist literary criticism is a theory of literary criticism based on the historical materialism developed by philosopher and economist Karl Marx.Marxist critics argue that even art and literature themselves form social institutions and have specific ideological functions, based on the background and ideology of their authors.
Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. Reader-response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates their own, possibly unique, text-related performance.
Two schools of formalist literary criticism developed, Russian formalism, and soon after Anglo-American New Criticism. Formalism was the dominant mode of academic literary study in the US at least from the end of the Second World War through the 1970s, especially as embodied in René Wellek and Austin Warren's Theory of Literature (1948, 1955 ...