Literary Criticism and Comparative Literature

Literary criticism is the practice of reading texts analytically, evaluating their meanings, structures and cultural significance. It is not simply a matter of personal taste or emotional response. A trained critic reads with specific tools and frameworks in mind, asking questions about how a text is constructed, what assumptions it encodes, what ideological positions it reflects and how it relates to the tradition it belongs to.

Over the twentieth century, a rich variety of critical approaches developed. Formalism and New Criticism, dominant in the mid-twentieth century, focused attention exclusively on the text itself, emphasising close reading of language, imagery and structure. Marxist criticism examined literature as a product of economic and social conditions. Feminist criticism explored how gender is represented and constructed in literary texts. Psychoanalytic criticism, drawing on Freud and Lacan, sought unconscious structures beneath the surface of the text.

Structuralism, applying the methods of Saussurean linguistics to literature, produced powerful analytical tools for describing narrative structure and the grammar of stories. Roland Barthes and Gérard Genette were among its most influential practitioners. Post-structuralism, associated with Jacques Derrida and his concept of deconstruction, challenged the idea that texts have stable, recoverable meanings, arguing that language always exceeds and undermines any fixed interpretation.

Comparative Literature studies the relationships between literary works from different national traditions, languages and historical periods. Rather than treating each national literature in isolation, it examines influence, intertextuality, translation, adaptation and the circulation of ideas and forms across cultural boundaries. A comparatist might study the reception of Shakespeare in Japan, the influence of Cervantes on nineteenth-century European fiction, or the ways in which colonial literature transformed and challenged the traditions of the colonising power.

At university, literary criticism takes the practical form of the academic essay. A good literary essay makes a clear argument supported by close reading of the text. It engages with secondary sources, situates the work in its historical and literary context, and demonstrates command of the relevant critical vocabulary. Writing literary essays is a skill that develops slowly, through reading, practice and constructive feedback.