1. What’s your favorite book… and WHY?
Literary Criticism
What’s your favorite book…
and WHY?

2. How do you decide if a book is worth reading?

3. estimation For scholars, answering this question is the next level
(after literary analysis):
literary criticism.
Fundamentally, this refers to the
estimation
of the value of a particular
work or body of work based on…

4. Readers do this by using interpretive strategies.
In other words, once you recognize the masterful way in which the author uses language, you are ready to evaluate the value of the text as a whole.
Readers do this by using interpretive strategies.
There are many different kinds.

5. which believes that a work of literature should be considered
For example:
I am an advocate of
New Criticism,
which believes that a work
of literature should be
considered
an object independent of
the author’s intention or
life experience.
Mortimer Adler

6. Sigmund Freud Many people apply my theories
to literature. They look for
evidence of sexual symbols, restricted
emotional development, and dreams,
among other things. They
call this
Psychoanalytic Criticism.
Sigmund Freud

7. which places primary value on the reader’s accumulated experience.
Another approach is
Reader Response,
which places primary value
on the reader’s
accumulated experience.

8. Feminist, African-American, Asian- American, Hispanic,
Many people are interested in different kinds of contextual interpretations:
Feminist, African-American, Asian American, Hispanic,
Native American, LGBTQ…

9. …and there are advocates of political-economic criticism.

10. As a reaction to New Criticism, an approach known as New Historicism advocated that a greater understanding of literature occurs when the reader places it in its cultural, political, sociological, and ideological context.
This approach
requires a lot of
research.

11. So, how do you decide if a book is worth reading?
Like most readers, you can and will mix these strategies to produce a personal interpretation for yourself!