Critical approaches to literature

At A Level, you read texts critically and consider different interpretations.

Major critical approaches

• Formalism and close reading: meaning through form, structure and language.
• Historical and contextual criticism: the text in relation to its time, place and author.
• Marxist criticism: class, power, economic relations and ideology.
• Feminist criticism: representations of women and gender, patriarchy and female voices.
• Postcolonial criticism (Achebe, Ngũgĩ, Said): colonialism, identity, language, resistance and hybridity; writing back to the centre.
• Psychoanalytic criticism: unconscious motives, desire and conflict.
• Reader-response: meaning created in the act of reading.
• Ecocriticism: the relationship between literature and the natural environment.

Language debates in African literature

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o argued for writing in African languages (Decolonising the Mind); Chinua Achebe argued that English can be adapted to carry African experience. Zimbabwean literature exists in English, Shona and Ndebele.

Using criticism in essays

Use critical ideas to open up interpretations – not to replace your own analysis. Weigh competing readings and reach your own judgement.

Check yourself

1. What concerns does postcolonial criticism focus on?
2. What was Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's argument about language?
3. Name two critical approaches and their focus.