Lit Crit

Question 0

Reader response criticism

Answer 0

Interested in the role played by the reader in creating meaning in literary works

Way the readers cultural values and attitudes can lead us to make assumptions about characters and ideas

Question 1

Feminist criticism

Answer 1

Tends to read literature in term of gender, with a particular emphasis on the representation of women and female identity

Concerned with the ways society and cultural attitudes toward women are expressed in text

Question 2

Race/post colonial

Answer 2

Looks in depth at the representation of ethnicity

Emphases is placed on way literature deals with issues associated with race and injustice-works set in

Question 3

Genre theory

Answer 3

Organize works into categories defined as: fiction, non-fiction, detective, thriller, comic, tragic and so on

Examine text in terms of extent to which they embody characteristics and conventions associated with categories above

Question 4

Cultural/historical

Answer 4

Portray aspects of the periods and cultures in which they are set

The extent to which any literary work expresses facts and opinions of history and their associated cultural values and practices

Question 5

Structuralist

Answer 5

Not particularly concerned with the content or ‘meaning’ of a literary work so much as the way it is put together

Find interest in the way the language and form of a particular work

Question 6

Marxist

Answer 6

Interested in the way literature explores the the issues of social class and power, with emphasis on treatment of working class people and the poor

Political, cultural, and social contexts
-Way they are embodied, and way reading is affected

Question 7

Psychoanalytical

Answer 7

Concerned with the way literature reflects the operation of the mind