A Critical Look At My Opinions on Criticism

Writing about literature, though sometime frustrating, functions to better our understanding of a work. It’s easy to sit down and enjoy a novel, but it takes a lot more patience to critically read and write about a work. Literary criticism should further our own understanding of what we read (by delving so deeply into it), but also should help others read the work in a different way or realize something they hadn’t noticed before. That tends to be the way I judge a criticism I’m reading—did at any point I feel compelled to re-open the book and read a piece over again because the criticism opened my eyes to something new?

Criticism, in my opinion, is carried out through reading a work with something specific in mind. No critic, regardless of his or her level of education, can read a piece and critique it from every perspective at once. It’s just too much for one person to handle. Therefore I think good criticism comes from multiple readings with various theories in mind each time, and good collaboration. Having multiple critiques of one work from different readers, I think, would be a really beneficial activity to help create a well-rounded criticism.

I see literature as a way to expand our personal experiences without actually experiencing things. I will never know what it’s like to have lived in the 1930s or to have grown up in New York City, but in reading literature, I feel I can get a sense of those experiences from my small apartment in Carrboro. I see literature as an opportunity to spend time in someone else’s head, whether it’s the author, the narrator, the main character, etc. I look for quality characters in a work, first and foremost. I believe with well-developed, intriguing, believable characters, any story could be interesting. Also, I look for realism. Not necessary for the plot or happenings to be realistic, but for the characters to interact and behave in a manner that is believable and not forced.