Literary Criticism Essay from A to Z
First of all, let’s figure out what is a literary criticism in general. It will help us to understand its point. Therefore it will be easier to write this type of essay.
A literary criticism essay is a type of essay, which aims at examining a work of literature (poems, plays, etc.). You can focus on one particular element of the work or on the full work. It depends on your task or desire (if you haven’t defined assignment).
How to Write a Literary Criticism Essay Instructions
Firstly, you have to read your assignment carefully. If you don’t understand some point, ask your professor to make it clear. It will help you to avoid many mistakes. After that, your task is to read the piece of literature a couple of times. To succeed in writing, you should:
- make notes in the margins;
- choose and mark pages which are useful for your topic;
- focus on your topic and pay attention to aspects related to it.
When you finish with your piece of literature, it is time to write. So, how to start a literary criticism essay? You can follow all these steps and be sure you remember about the next points:
- Outline. It will help you to organize your thoughts and ideas. Make your outline using notes in the book. Write down all your points to remember them.
- Make a draft. Just write as you want to write. Ask questions, answer them, analyze different data and set various interconnections. Here you are totally free. Find the best points and thoughts, when you’re done. These are the basis for your essay. After that just find examples and support from the text.
- Start writing. If you don’t know how to start the Introduction of an essay, just skip it. You will be able to return to it in the end. Moreover, it will save your time.
So, you see that everything is pretty simple. You have to be organized and focused on your task. If you still don’t know how to start, read your work of literature one more time and try to understand the point. You have to be ready to revise and reorganize. It is necessary. You won’t write your essay in two minutes, although everything is possible.
Different Types of Literary Criticism Essay: Overview and Features
There are various types of literary criticism essay. It depends on which critical eye you choose as your basis. For example, the most popular types are archetypal and cultural criticism, then feminist criticism and Marxist criticism. So, let’s talk in detail about some of them.
Cultural Criticism
Students who write cultural criticism essay consider the text in relation to the main ideology of the period and location where the literature was written. This type of essay interprets facts as representative of values and beliefs.
Feminist Literary Criticism Essay
It is one of the most popular types of literary criticism essay, which is based on feminist theories. What to include in feminist literary criticism essay? Everything which is related to gender issues.
Author of literary criticism essay considers the literature from the part of gender equality. Analysis of the text is based on gender stereotypes, different treatment of female and male authors, prejudices and different cultural institutions.
This movement came in the 1960s and 1970s, although feminism was described in earlier pieces of literature. Nowadays it is becoming more and more popular.
Marxist Literary Criticism Essay
The Marxist phenomenon implies that this type is based on Karl Marx’s writings. It investigates how literature can work as a force for a social change. Marx said that the aim of the literature is education and advocacy. Marxist literary criticism essay shows how literature works with other expressions of particular ideology.
You can find a Marxist literary criticism essay example on the Web to understand this type of essay better. It would give you the imagination of it using real samples and defined literature. Sometimes it can be really useful.
Literary Criticism Essay Outline Importance
As stated earlier, literary criticism essay outline is a crucial stage of essay writing. You can forget some fact or idea if you don’t write it down. It helps you to keep everything in mind but stay calm at the same time. Also, it is a great way to make your essay more logical and structured. You just have to write all ideas and split them into particular paragraphs. The structure is quite trivial: introduction, the main body, and the final conclusion. So, keep all these points, and your writing will be done fast and successfully. Actually, it is an interesting and even exciting task, but only if you take it easy.