Unit 3 Definitions
literary criticism-application of one or more literary theories or tools of literary theory to specific texts.
literary theory-philosophy of understanding texts. Often, literary theories are connected to other disciplines, such as psychology, economics, or linguistics; also, theories may be connected to broader social movements, such as feminism. Theories, therefore, can often stand on their own.
inductive - a method of argumentation or reasoning where specific details and facts are presented first in order to lead to a general argument or thesis.
deductive - a method of argumentation or reasoning where a general argument or thesis is provided at the outset and then specific facts and details are used to support this thesis.
review of criticism - section of a critical article that reviews other criticism that is relevant to the current discussion. In some disciplines, this is also called a "review of literature."
close reading - A method of textual analysis that comes from the theoretical school of New Criticism. A close reading attends to the details of the text such as figurative language. This type of analysis is the basic building block of literary criticism and can be used to launch contextual readings of texts that consider other aspects of the work's production.
primary source - In literary criticism, the original literary text being studied is a primary source. This differs from other disciplines where a primary source may include original research studies, ethnographic observations, etc.
secondary source - In literary criticism, any other materials, such as critical articles, historical resources, relevant theoretical texts, that are used in conjunction with a primary source (or sources) to construct an argument.
© 2011-12 Susan Shelangoskie, Ph.D.