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EN 463: Senior Research Seminar

What is Literary Criticism?

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. There are many types of literary criticism: some examples include historical criticism, textual criticism, feminist criticism, and formalist criticism. Literary criticism may examine a single literary work or it may look at an author's complete body of work.

Choosing a Topic

  • There is more criticism written on authors and works from the past than contemporary authors. Look at it this way: they've been written about far longer!
  • Well-known authors will have a larger body of criticism to choose from than less well-known authors.
  • Larger works (novels, plays) attract more critical attention than short stories, essays, or poems.
  • Don't marry your topic! Have a handful of topics under consideration, do some initial quick searches, see what has a larger body of work, and pick the topic with the most to choose from.
  • If you have an obscure topic, reference librarians are available to help you!