Post 15 - Psychological Criticism

Psychological criticism is defined in our literature book as:

"The practice of analyzing a literary work through investigating three major areas: the nature of literary genius, the psychological study of a particular artist, and the analysis of fictional characters. This methodology uses the analytical tools of psychology and psychoanalysis to understand the underlying motivations and meanings of a literary work."*

I would imagine that when an author is contemplating a literary work that she/he would consider a psychological analysis of the characters in the story or poem. This can be seen by the author writing the different character's speech and thoughts within a work. Each character would have a different psychological (and personal) perspective and that would be shown by the author writing what the characters are saying and thinking. Once a work is completed, a psychological criticism by the reader would be an attempt to analyze the psychological perspective that the author gave her/his characters.

Another method of doing a psychological criticism is to look at the life, quotes, and history of the author of a literary work. This would give insight into the story and characters of the writing. Either method of psychological criticism would give insight into the literary work being analyzed.

* Kennedy, X.J., & Gioia, D. (2013). Literature: An introduction to fiction, poetry, drama, and writing (12th ed., p. 2073). Boston: Pearson.