Wiktionary
n. (context literature English) The study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature.
WordNet
Wikipedia
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.
Whether or not literary criticism should be considered a separate field of inquiry from literary theory, or conversely from book reviewing, is a matter of some controversy. For example, the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism draws no distinction between literary theory and literary criticism, and almost always uses the terms together to describe the same concept. Some critics consider literary criticism a practical application of literary theory, because criticism always deals directly with particular literary works, while theory may be more general or abstract.
Literary criticism is often published in essay or book form. Academic literary critics teach in literature departments and publish in academic journals, and more popular critics publish their reviews in broadly circulating periodicals such as the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, The Nation, and The New Yorker.
Literary Criticism is one of several academic events sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League in Texas, USA. The contest began in the 1986–87 school year.
Literary Criticism is designed to test students' knowledge of literary history and of critical terms, and ability in literary criticism. The text A Handbook to Literature by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman (currently, either the 8th, 9th, or 10th edition may be used), state adopted texts, and the announced reading list for the current year will be used as sources for the tests.
Usage examples of "literary criticism".
It is one of the cardinal errors of literary criticism to believe that the author's own views can be inferred from his writing.
Arnold Bennett, for instance, wrote a great deal of literary criticism, and it's clear that he is almost unable to see any merit in any book earlier than the nineteenth century, and indeed hasn't much interest in any writer other than his contemporaries.
As literary criticism, it was virtually worthless (even Foucault referred to Derrida as a literary terrorist).
I'm not knocking literary criticism, but I just don't give a damn about analysis of that sort, be it Freudian or feminist.
In his literary criticism, he disdained the use of formula and stock characters while unabashedly using both to his advantage in his highly popular fiction.
Perhaps it is an attempt to turn the tables on scientists who have long argued that literary criticism, religion, aesthetics, and much of philosophy and ethics are mere subjective opinion, because they cannot be demonstrated like a theorem in Euclidean geometry nor put to experimental test.
But with this one of -the Duchess's pleasures it was not so much with the help of literary criticism as by following political life and the reports of parliamentary debates that I tried to understand in what it might consist.