Literary Approaches
(not an exhaustive list)

• Historical-Critical approaches
  • textual criticism: Reconstruction of the original or earlier forms of the text, or focus on the history of the text's transmission.
  • source criticism: Historical and linguistic evaluation of a composite text (i.e., one that doesn't have a single author) in order to determine literary and/or oral sources that lie behind the current text.
  • Tendenzkritik (viewpoint criticism): Evaluation of the point of view or motivations of the author (e.g., political, ideological, theological, etc.) based on an analysis of a text produced by the author.
  • form criticism: Analysis of a pericope's original setting (Sitz im Leben), based on its genre (e.g., folk tale, psalm of complaint, legend, etc.), with a focus on how the story was used in its original setting, usually orally.
  • tradition history: Attempt to describe the development of a specific biblical tradition over the course of time.
  • redaction criticism: Analysis of a pericope's final, literary setting (Sitz im Leben), especially in comparison with its sources, with a focus on how the story functioned in the completed document.
• Formalist approaches
  • close reading (New Criticism) (this approach cannot be used for the literary analysis paper): Studying the text itself in close detail to discover its internal organic unity, with special attention paid to repetition, symbolism and imagery, and, in poetry, rhythm and sound patterns.
  • rhetorical criticism: A variant of close reading, with an emphasis on persuasion.
  • reader-response criticism: Concentrating on the reader and the reading process as the way to determine the meaning of the text. Meaning is brought to the text by the reader, without whom the text, in some sense, doesn't even exist.
  • reception history (reception theory): Approach which documents reader responses to a particular work through time.
• Materialist approaches
  • Marxism: Reading of a text that sees it as part of the ideological superstructure built on an economic base, the society's mode of production. Marxist readings also highlight class struggles and economic factors as driving forces in historical development.
  • literary Darwinism: Approach to literature that understands it as reflecting a common human nature that is part of the long evolutionary process described by science. In particular, the production of art and literature is viewed as the outcome of natural selection pressures.
  • ecocriticism: Critical reading of the text that concentrates on the relationship between literature and the natural environment.
• Structuralism & Poststructuralism
  • deconstruction: Analysis that denies the existence of any privileged position from which to read a text, noting discrepancies and ambiguities within the text (caused in part by the multivalent nature of language) that negate any single reading.
  • Bakhtinian reading: "Carnivalesque" reading of a text that emphasizes the absurd, the grotesque, the ambiguous, the ironic, and especially the multiplicity of voices that often inhabit texts.
• Social Science approaches
  • psychological approaches (e.g., family systems theory): Analysis of author, characters, and/or readers using techniques and concepts developed in the field of psychology, including ideas such as the unconscious; the id, ego, and superego; and psychic archetypes.
  • mythological criticism: Examination of a text for transcendent, even universal images or archetypes within a narrative; based on the work of Carl Jung.
  • sociological approaches: Analysis of a text that makes use of theoretical, sociological models in order to better understand social dynamics embedded in the text. Sociological approaches use data from all the social sciences (sociology, anthropology, archaeology, political science, psychology, economics) to generate sociological models in light of which to interpret the data found in the text and in other sources.
• Genre studies
  • novella/short story: Analysis of a text as a short story, including structural elements such as introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion.
  • comedy: Analysis of a text in light of Greek comedic traditions, including actions that evoke laughter and pleasure from the audience, and the incorporation of the hero into the society to which he properly belongs at the end of the story.
  • tragedy: Analysis of a text in light of Greek tragic traditions, including actions that evoke pity and fear from the audience, and the explusion of the hero from the society to which he properly belongs at the end of the story.
  • drama: Analysis of a text as a dramatic presentation, with two or more different characters and indicators of action as well as speech.
• Contextual/Ideological approaches (AKA Cultural Hermeneutics)
  • feminism: Reading a text with an awareness of the power imbalances that exist between the traditional sexual roles of male and female, present in the text, the society that produced the text, and readers of the text.
  • womanism: An expansion of feminism that includes the latter's awareness of traditional sexual roles of male and female but also considers the special concerns that race and ethnicity present to women of color.
  • queer theory: Examining a text from the standpoint of seeing sexual acts and identities as socially constructed rather than innate, rejecting traditional binary oppositions of male/female and the roles associated with them. Queer theory also moves beyond the boundaries of sexuality to challenge other socially constructed identities, such as race, class, nation, and culture, emphasizing ambiguities in the text, whether intended by the author or identified by the reader, and examining the ramifications of alternate readings.
  • ethnic studies: Reading a text from the point of view of a member of a specific ethnic group, especially one that traditionally lacks access to power characteristic of membership in the dominant culture.
  • postcolonialism: Approach to a text that examines the ways in which Western culture imposed its values, categories, self-identity, and worldview on colonized peoples, and seeks to recover precolonial (native) ways of thinking, while recognizing that indigenous perspectives have often merged with colonial perspectives, creating a new synthesis.
  • liberation reading: Approach to a text from the perspective of a member of the lower socioeconomic classes, who have suffered marginalization or oppression by the higher classes. This approach advocates a "preferential option for the poor," often draws on Marxist economic theory in its analysis, and advocates social change.
• (Pure) Literary approaches
  • comparative studies: Comparison of literary works across cultures, languages, and times.