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2. Moralist Criticism
Treatment of underlying or overarching issue concerning human
experience

3. It is concerned with content and values.
The approach is as old as literature itself, for
literature is a traditional mode of imparting morality,
philosophy, and religion.
It does not only concern to discover meaning but
also to determine whether works of literature are
both true and significant.

4. Formalist Criticism
Overall artistic value of the structure and elements of the selection.

5. This approach regards literature as “a unique form
of human knowledge that needs to be examined on
its own terms.”
All the elements necessary for understanding the
work are contained within the work itself.
Of particular interest to the formalist critic are the
elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery,
etc.—that are found within the text.

6. It is the study of a text without taking into account
any outside influence.
It rejects notions of culture or societal influence,
authorship, and content.
Its focus is on modes, genres, discourse, and forms.

7. It refers to critical approaches that analyze,
interpret, or evaluate the inherent features of a text.
These features include not only grammar and syntax
but also literary devices such as meter and tropes.
 The formalist approach reduces the importance of a
text’s historical, biographical, and cultural context.

8. Gender CriticismGender relationships of characters

9. Feminist

10. This school of thought seeks to describe and analyze
the ways in which literature portrays the narrative of
male domination in regard to female bodies by
exploring the economic, social, political, and
psychological forces embedded within literature

11. Elaine Showalter describes the development of
feminist theory as having three phases.
1. The first she calls "feminist critique", in which the
feminist reader examines the ideologies behind
literary phenomena.
2. The second Showalter calls "gynocriticism", in
which the "woman is producer of textual meaning".
3. The last phase she calls "gender theory", in which
the "ideological inscription and the literary effects of
the sex/gender system are explored".

12. Historical CriticismRelevance of the selection to the historical context during
which it was produced

13. This approach “seeks to understand a literary work
by investigating the social, cultural, and intellectual
context that produced it—a context that necessarily
includes the artist’s biography and milieu.”
A key goal for historical critics is to understand the
effect of a literary work upon its original readers.

14. Marxist CriticismPower struggles of characters

15. It focuses on the economic and political elements of
art, often emphasizing the ideological content of
literature.
It often argues that all art is political, either
challenging or endorsing (by silence) the status quo.
It is frequently evaluative and judgmental, a
tendency that “can lead to reductive judgment.”
 It can illuminate political and economic dimensions
of literature other approaches overlook.

16. Reader-Response
CriticismPersonal significance of the selection to the reader

17. This approach takes as a fundamental tenet that
“literature” exists not as an artifact upon a printed
page but as a transaction between the physical text
and the mind of a reader.
It attempts “to describe what happens in the
reader’s mind while interpreting a text” and reflects
that reading, like writing, is a creative process.
Literary texts do not “contain” a meaning; meanings
derive only from the act of individual readings.

18. Reader-response criticism, then, emphasizes how
“religious, cultural, and social values affect
readings.
It also overlaps with gender criticism in exploring
how men and women read the same text with
different assumptions.”
Though this approach rejects the notion that a
single “correct” reading exists for a literary work, it
does not consider all readings permissible: “Each
text creates limits to its possible interpretations.”