Criticism Defined

Defining criticism

We all know what literary criticism is, right? From our English and Literature courses from the grades to high school and to college, our teachers required us to do critical papers on various poems, short stories and novels, and plays. We would try to analyze the pieces and provide interpretations of the assigned works.

But as M. H. Abrams defines it, in his Glossary of Literary Terms (I'm using the 3rd edition), criticism "is the branch of study concerned with defining, classifying, expounding, and evaluating works of literature" (36).

Abrams classifies this branch of study into two general types. There's what he terms as theoretical criticism that sets out to define "terms, distinctions, and categories" as well as "the standards or norms" for the interpretation and evaluation of literature. He cites Aristotle's Poetics as an example of this type.

The other type Abrams calls as practical or applied criticism. This is what we're more familiar with, having done something like it in our interpretations of literary pieces and their authors. Sometimes we also apply certain theoretical principles into our critiques, the better to impress our teachers.

Abrams also distinguishes two kinds of practical criticism: impressionistic and judicial criticism. One reflects the qualities "felt" by the critic in reading the work, and the other tries to justify the critic's evaluation of the piece through certain literary principles or criteria.

We're already familiar with Abrams's categorization of critical approaches (mimetic, pragmatic, expressive, and objective) that a critic employs when analyzing a literary piece. He also points out that some critics also bring into their reading "special areas of knowledge and theory" that may also determine how we label a particular interpretation: historical, biographical, sociological, psychological, archetypal, and so on (37-38).

Abrams adds still another type, which he says is often taken for granted: textual criticism. This involves a careful study of the genesis of a particular work and its meanings, as it went through various stages of book production or translation.

Having said all that, you may have sensed that there's no escaping theory. And you may be right. Even impressionistic criticism worth its A+ resort to some "theorizing" to lend credence to the critic's conjectures.

So what is theory?