Contemporary Critical Theories

Abstract

A brief introduction to literary criticism and literary theory are given at the start. In any genre, the critic must be, in a sense, a political thinker, sociologist, and psychologist, as well as a literary historian and aesthetician. Additionally, this paper examines various critical, literary concepts and finally the conclusion is drawn by means of the review of literature indicated. Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. It is the body of ideas and methods we use in the practical reading of literature. By literary theory we refer not to the meaning of a work of literature but to the theories that reveal what literature can mean. Literary theory is a description of the underlying principles, one might say the tools, by which we attempt to understand literature. All literary interpretation draws on a basis in theory but can serve as a justification for very different kinds of critical activity. It is literary theory that formulates the relationship between author and work; literary theory develops the significance of race, class, and gender for literary study, both from the standpoint of the biography of the author and an analysis of their thematic presence within texts. In simple words, it is a perspective with which we look at and interpret a text.