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What are the different schools of thought in literary analysis and how do they differ from one another?

Emilie O'Mullan

Literary analysis is a way of looking at stories and books to understand what they mean and how they work. There are different ways of doing this, and we call them schools of thought.

One school of thought is called formalism. It focuses on things like language, structure, and literary devices. Formalists think that the way a story is written is more important than what it means or how it relates to the world.

Another school of thought is called historicism. This one looks at how books were influenced by the time and place they were written in. Historicists think that we can learn a lot about a book by understanding the culture, politics, and history of the time when it was written.

A third school of thought is called reader-response theory. This one says that each reader brings their own experiences and ideas to a book, and those things shape what the book means to them. Reader-response theorists think that there are many different ways to interpret a book, and they are all valid.

There are many more schools of thought in literary analysis, but these are three of the main ones. Each one has its own way of looking at books and trying to understand them. Sometimes these different viewpoints can lead to debates and arguments, but they can also help us see books in new and interesting ways.

So, in short, there are different ways of looking at books and understanding what they mean, and these are called schools of thought. Formalism looks at the way a book is written, historicism looks at the time and place it was written in, and reader-response theory says that readers bring their own ideas to a book.