Essay On Historical Criticism

Literature is an intricate art form. In order to attempt to understand the meanings and ideas within literary work, there are many forms of criticism that propose different approaches to its interpretation. Each criticism is crucial to the understanding of how individuals interpret literary works. Since each criticism has a different approach to enrich the understanding literary works, the question is raised whether one criticism should be used over others, whether a certain combination of criticisms should be used, or whether all criticisms should be taken into account. This may all be dependent on the reader’s individual preference or opinion, but each criticism presented builds on the others to create a well-rounded and unique understanding

Historical Criticism is criticism that “considers how military, social, cultural, economic, scientific, intellectual, literary, and every other kind of history helps us to understand the author and the work” (Lynn 142). Simply stated, unlike the previously discussed criticisms, Historical Criticism connects a work to certain times or places, revealing its historical influences. Therefore, the reader is required to perform research in order to learn more about the author’s life, the author’s time period and culture, and the way of reasoning during that time. Accordingly, with a critical eye, the reader should relate the information back to the work which will provide the reader with a richer understanding of the reading as well as with author’s message to the reader (Lynn 29-31). Beyond “close reading”, the reader must research what establishes the foundation of the work. Although, below the foundation of a work there lies an even richer understanding of the

Literary criticism is used as a guideline to help analyze, deconstruct, interpret, or even evaluate literary works. Each type of criticism offers its own methods that help the reader to delve deeper into the text, revealing all of its innermost features. New Criticism portrays how a work is unified, Reader-Response Criticism establishes how the reader reacts to a work, Deconstructive Criticism demonstrates how a work falls apart, Historical Criticism illustrates how the history of the author and the author’s time period influence a text, and last of all, Psychological Criticism expresses how unconscious motivations drive the author in the creation of their work as well as how the reader’s motivations influence their own interpretation of the text (Lynn 139, 191). This creates a deep level of understanding of literature that simply cannot be gained through surface level reading. If not one criticism is beneficial to the reader, then taking all criticisms or a mixture of specific criticisms into consideration might be the best way to approach literary