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Literary Criticism Techniques Explained

The document provides a mnemonic and a concise overview of various literary criticism approaches, including New Criticism, Psychoanalytical Criticism, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Marxism, Feminism, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, New Historicism, Ecocriticism, and Ecofeminism. Each approach is summarized with its focus, a memorable trick, and examples of relevant literature. The document also offers a suggestion to create a colorful one-page chart or notes PDF for easier revision.

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11 views4 pages

Literary Criticism Techniques Explained

The document provides a mnemonic and a concise overview of various literary criticism approaches, including New Criticism, Psychoanalytical Criticism, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Marxism, Feminism, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, New Historicism, Ecocriticism, and Ecofeminism. Each approach is summarized with its focus, a memorable trick, and examples of relevant literature. The document also offers a suggestion to create a colorful one-page chart or notes PDF for easier revision.

Uploaded by

ssc4u.official
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

🎯 Short Trick to Remember All:

“New Psycho Colon Post Marx Fem Struc Post-New Eco Eco”
(Think of a movie hero named “New Psycho” who fights Colonizers, Marxists, and saves
Feminists & Nature!)

Or in Hindi:
“न्यू सायको कॉलोन पोस्ट-मार्कसस फे म स्रर्कचर पोस्ट-न्यू ईको-ईको”
→ इससे पूरा सीक्वेंस याद रहेगा।

🧠 1. New Criticism (न्यू क्रिटिसिज़्म)

Focus: Text only — not author or reader.


Trick: “Text is the king!”
Examples:

1. Close reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18


2. T. S. Eliot – The Waste Land (analyzed for structure, irony, symbols)
3. Cleanth Brooks – The Well Wrought Urn

🧠 2. Psychoanalytical Criticism (िाइकोएनासिटिकि आिोचना)

Focus: Mind of author or characters (Freud’s theory)


Trick: “Character ke dimaag ka X-ray”
Examples:

1. Hamlet’s indecision → Oedipus complex


2. Frankenstein’s monster → Repressed guilt
3. Dorian Gray → Desire and Id-Ego conflict
🧠 3. Colonialism / Postcolonialism (औपननवेसिकता / उपननवेिोत्तरवाद)

Focus: Power, race, identity after colonial rule.


Trick: “White vs Native, Power vs Resistance”
Examples:

1. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad


2. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
3. A Tempest – Aimé Césaire

🧠 4. Marxism (मार्किसवाद)

Focus: Class struggle, economy, power.


Trick: “Rich vs Poor in Literature”
Examples:

1. Hard Times – Charles Dickens


2. Germinal – Émile Zola
3. Animal Farm – George Orwell

🧠 5. Feminism (नारीवाद)

Focus: Gender equality, women’s voice.


Trick: “Hear her story!”
Examples:

1. A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf


2. The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvoir
3. The Color Purple – Alice Walker

🧠 6. Structuralism (िंरचनावाद)

Focus: Patterns, language system (Saussure).


Trick: “Structure matters!”
Examples:
1. Myths studied by Claude Lévi-Strauss
2. Roland Barthes – Mythologies
3. Language rules in Linguistics

🧠 7. Post-Structuralism (उत्तर-िंरचनावाद)

Focus: No fixed meaning, language is unstable.


Trick: “Meaning slips like sand”
Examples:

1. Derrida – Of Grammatology
2. Foucault – The Order of Things
3. Barthes – Death of the Author

🧠 8. New Historicism (न्यू टिस्िोररसिज़्म)

Focus: Text + Historical context = meaning.


Trick: “History in text, text in history”
Examples:

1. Stephen Greenblatt – Renaissance Self-Fashioning


2. Doctor Faustus in Elizabethan context
3. Shakespeare’s The Tempest with colonization

🧠 9. Ecocriticism (पयासवरण आिोचना)

Focus: Nature and environment in literature.


Trick: “Nature is the main character”
Examples:

1. Silent Spring – Rachel Carson


2. Walden – Thoreau
3. The Overstory – Richard Powers
🧠 10. Ecofeminism (पयासवरण नारीवाद)

Focus: Link between women and nature exploitation.


Trick: “Save woman = Save nature”
Examples:

1. Vandana Shiva – Staying Alive


2. Susan Griffin – Woman and Nature
3. Margaret Atwood – Surfacing

Would you like me to make this into a colorful one-page chart or notes PDF (English-Hindi
mix) for easy revision?

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