Literary criticism, what is it?

Literary criticism – (Judgment, the art of discerning, judging) – one of the components of literary criticism. Closely related to the history and theory of literature, engaged mainly in determining the nature of literary creativity, the establishment of basic patterns of aesthetic development of reality, the analysis of the classical literary heritage. Literary criticism evaluates mainly modern literary development, interprets works of art from the perspective of modernity. Determining the ideological and aesthetic quality of the current book and magazine literary and artistic production, literary criticism is based primarily on the challenges facing society at this stage of its development. A work of art, which does not broaden the reader’s spiritual horizons, does not give people aesthetic pleasure, which is poor in emotion and because of this does not affect the aesthetic sense, – such a work can not be recognized as truly artistic. Its roots in the history of literary criticism is rooted in the distant past: critical judgments about literature were born simultaneously with the appearance of artistic works. The first readers from among the thinking, wisdom of life experience and endowed with an aesthetic sense and were, in fact, the first literary critics. Already in the antiquity era, literary criticism was forming as a relatively independent branch of creativity.

Personal qualities

There are all kinds of people and all kinds of passions. Some, for example, his whole passion, the whole pathos of his nature is cold anger, and he is only then intelligent, talented and even healthy when he bites (V.G. Belinsky).

Any critic must be prepared not only for responsibility, but also for people’s unfriendly attitudes. Few people are able to take criticism and draw conclusions-as a rule, any critical article brings with it the attacks of dissenters.

Education (What do you need to know?)

There is no such specialty in educational institutions. Anyone who wants to be a respected critic can have any profession. Most often it is people with a background in journalism or culture. But first of all you need talent, like those creative people who are to be criticized.

In order to competently prove their point of view, a specialist must be well versed in the kind of art that he criticizes.

And let us not forget that “of all critics, the greatest, the most brilliant, the most infallible is time.