Your literary analysis will often be in the form of an essay where you may use the approaches discussed above—formal analysis, cultural analysis, and comparison/contrast—to make an argument about the assigned work. A literary analysis essay that argues for a particular perspective demands textual evidence, specific examples from the primary text itself employed to illustrate/prove an assertion.

One common misconception students entertain when they approach literary analysis essays is the idea that the structure of the essay should follow the structure of the literary work. The events of short stories, novels, and plays are often related chronologically, in linear order from the moment when the first event occurs to the moment of the last. Yet, it can be awkward to write a literary analysis using the story’s chronology as a basic structure for your own essay. Often, this approach leads to an essay that simply summarizes the literary work. Since a literary analysis paper should avoid summary for summary’s sake, the writer should avoid an essay structure that results in that pattern: And then Brett goes to San Sebastian with Robert Cohn, and then she returns in time to meet her fiancé Mike Campbell, and then….

Textual Evidence

Just as scientists provide data to support their results, those who write a literary analysis essay must use evidence from literature in order to convince their audience that they have a cogent argument. Evidence must be provided in every body paragraph in order to support your claims. Where will you find evidence? First, you must do a close reading of the text. It is much easier to first analyze and think about how the smaller literary elements work together to create the whole work, rather than randomly thumbing through a work to find support for your thesis. When you provide evidence, you are providing proof from the text that shows your audience that your thesis is valid. Writers most commonly provide evidence by quoting a line or a passage from a work. When you provide evidence, it is imperative not to take it out of context. For example, if a character is joking with another character that he will kill himself if he fails his chemistry test and there’s no other mention of death in the work, it would be unfair to represent this character as suicidal by eliminating the context of him joking. Accurately quoting and fairly representing events/characters/etc. adds to your credibility as a writer. If you find evidence that counters your thesis, you should still engage with it. Think about what your critics would say and come up with a response to show how that particular piece of evidence might still support your stance. Once you’re done gathering evidence, you can move on to the analysis portion in which you explain how the evidence supports your claims.

Critical Sources

Literary criticism is a disciplined attempt to analyze some aspect or aspects of one or more works of art—for our purposes, mostly literary art (plays, novels, short stories, essays, poems). Note that in this context the word “criticism” doesn’t simply mean finding fault with the writing but rather looking at it from a critical or analytical viewpoint in order to understand it better.

Serious literary critics study their primary materials very closely and repeatedly, examine the contexts in which the works they are studying were produced, and read widely in the work of other literary critics on their subject before producing their own original analysis of a work or works of literature.

Generally, literary criticism is published in one of three forms: in a book; in an article published in a professional journal, whether print-based or online; or in an article published in a book as part of a collection. These formats insure that experts in the appropriate field(s) have reviewed the literary criticism and judged its accuracy in points of fact, its attention to scholarship in the field, etc. These formats are peer-reviewed sources, which means that a source has been rigorously scrutinized by other experts before publication.

Encyclopedia articles do not offer true literary criticism, nor do Cliff’s Notes, Spark Notes, Schmoop, E-notes, or “overviews” of authors, works, or literary topics available online. Some websites do post serious scholarship. An ideal place to begin your search for literary criticism is at the LCCC library, which provides several sources for you to find literary criticism in addition to LibGuides for selected literary works and topics.

Why consult and cite literary criticism?

• Reading a variety of views increases your knowledge of your subject and helps you to demonstrate to your reader that you have considered views other than your own.
• Reading literary criticism enables you to weigh your conclusions against others to check your logic and to see whether you have covered all significant aspects of your argument.
• Citing others’ views makes you appear a more knowledgeable writer to your readers.
• Citing literary critics whose views agree with yours can strengthen your case (although you must still supply the appropriate evidence).
• Taking issue with a critic with whom you disagree can also strengthen your case if you present your counterargument effectively.
• Literary criticism can enable you and your readers to see how evaluations and analyses of literature have changed over time.
• Don’t let the critics run away with your paper. Instead, keep their ideas subordinated to your own and use them to support your own claims.