English 12 / Unit 7: Literary Criticism and Analysis
7.2 Historical and Biographical Criticism
Notes
Historical criticism reads a text in light of the time and place in which it was written. Biographical criticism uses the author's life.
- Ask: What events, beliefs or social conditions shaped this text? How would readers at that time have understood it?
- Example: Swift's "A Modest Proposal" makes more sense knowing the poverty and English policies in 1720s Ireland.
- Example: Frankenstein reflects early 1800s anxieties about science and electricity experiments.
- Caution: context supports a reading, but should not replace analysis of the text.
Practice
Which question belongs to historical criticism?
Historical criticism relates a text to its time.
A critic explains that a poem about factories reflects the harsh working conditions of the Industrial Revolution. This is:
The critic uses the period's conditions to explain the poem.
What is a limit of biographical criticism?
Good criticism also analyzes the text.
Ready for more? Take the Unit 7 test.