Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism: An overview

"Literary criticism is the evaluation, analysis, description, or interpretation of literary works. It is usually in the form of a critical essay, but in-depth book reviews can sometimes be considered literary criticism. Criticism may examine a particular literary work, or may look at an author's writings as a whole. Finding literary criticism can be challenging. The functions of literary criticism vary widely, ranging from the reviewing of books as they are published to systematic theoretical discussion.