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Literary Criticism Research

Would you like to write a good paper for your literature class?

The first step is to read the literary work you are analyzing. Your thoughts and reactions as a reader will be key to your paper.

The next step is to find outside information that will help you understand the work. This information can help you make sense of the literature you are reading, and contribute to a more informed analysis.

This guide highlights useful outside information sources for students writing literary criticism.

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Literary Criticism for Students (and anyone else)

Getting started, research strategies, online encyclopedias, literary criticism databases, author biography, defining terms and concepts.

• Finding Books & Media
• Finding Articles
• Online Resources
• Literary Theory
• Writing Resources
• Citing Sources
• Print Reference
• Readers' Services
• Research Services

What is Literary Criticism?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, literary criticism is "The art or practice of judging and commenting on the qualities and character of a literary work; consideration or analysis of a text in relation to language, structure, biography, history, etc., or (in later use, freq. with modifying word) by a particular philosophical, political, or linguistic method; (also) an instance of this, esp. in a written form; a school or method of criticizing literature.

• Library research, reading, and note-taking are time consuming.  When planning your time, make sure to take this into account and leave sufficient time for writing, reviewing, and proofreading your paper.
• Request material to come to a branch convenient to you (5-7 days)
• Request material through Interlibrary Loan (3-4 weeks)
• Plan a visit to the Research Library at Copley Square to use in-library-use-only material.
• Use Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) to obtain an overview essay on your author, title, or topic and use that as the starting point for creating a tentative outline and thesis statement for your paper.   Note: When searching GVRL consider not limiting your search to the literature sources.  An unrestricted search returns results from a wide variety of sources some of which could prove useful to your research.   Note: GVRL has a translate feature which should facilitate use of the database for those who do not speak English as a first language. Watch the tutorial .
• Use the literary criticism databases on this page to explore your topic further. This will help to determine whether there is sufficient material to support your thesis or perhaps lead you in a different direction.   Note: Both Artemis and Literature Criticism Online have a feature called Topic Finder which can be useful in suggesting new topics connected to your original search. Watch the tutorial . Note: Literature Resource Center also has a translate feature.
• Use the bibliographies found in relevant articles to expand your range of sources.
• When taking notes, make sure to put quotation marks around any words that are not your own and take down all the necessary publication information that you will need for your works-cited list, including page numbers and date of access if you are using a website.   Note: You do not need to document material that is common knowledge.
• Credo Reference This link opens in a new window Credo Reference is a giant online reference library that provides access to as many as 162 reference books, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, books of quotations, as well as a range of subject-specific titles all cross-referenced throughout the collection. Special features include a crossword solver and conversion calculators.
• Gale Virtual Reference Library This link opens in a new window Gale Virtual Reference Library includes more than 90 encyclopedias, plus numerous specialized reference sources covering a diversity of subject including Arts, Biography, Business, Education, Environment, History, Law, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Nation & World, Religion, Science, and Social Science. The Literature collection includes the popular literary criticism sets Drama for Students, Novels for Students, Poetry for Students, Shakespeare for Students, Short Stories for Students, and more. more... less... Includes more than 90 encyclopedias, plus numerous specialized reference sources covering a diversity of subjects including Arts, Biography, Business, Education, Environment, History, Law, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Nation & World, Religion, Science, and Social Science. Some "Junior" sources included as well.
• Literary Sources This link opens in a new window An integrated search for Literature Criticism Online, Literature Resource Center, and Modern Language Association (MLA) International Bibliography.
• Introductory tutorial
• Additional tutorials
• Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window Literature Criticism Online provides tens of thousands of hard-to-find essays on books and plays by the scholars of today and from the past. This resource includes full-text criticism from ten different sources: Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Shakespeare Criticism, Literature Criticism 1400-1800, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Drama Criticism, Children's Literature Review
• Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window Literature Resource Center pulls together materials from many different print and online sources, including scholarly journals, literary reviews, reference books, authoritative websites, and more. The Research Guide walks you through the process of writing a research paper on a literature topic, from choosing a topic to gathering information, from formulating a thesis statement to writing, revising, and preparing a Works Cited page.
• Gale In Context: Biography This link opens in a new window Nearly 300,000 full-text biographies gathered from Gale's award-winning reference sources and 250 periodicals specifically chosen for their renowned biographical content in a broad range of subject areas.
• A Glossary of Literary Terms A listing of terms with explanations and examples.
• Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a recognized authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is a guide to the meaning, history and pronunciation of over half a million words.
• Next: Finding Books & Media >>
• Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024 10:24 AM
• URL: https://guides.bpl.org/literarycriticism

Chapter Four: Theory, Methodologies, Methods, and Evidence

Research Methods

You are viewing the first edition of this textbook. a second edition is available – please visit the latest edition for updated information..

This page discusses the following topics:

Research Goals

Research method types.

Before discussing research   methods , we need to distinguish them from  methodologies  and  research skills . Methodologies, linked to literary theories, are tools and lines of investigation: sets of practices and propositions about texts and the world. Researchers using Marxist literary criticism will adopt methodologies that look to material forces like labor, ownership, and technology to understand literature and its relationship to the world. They will also seek to understand authors not as inspired geniuses but as people whose lives and work are shaped by social forces.

Example: Critical Race Theory Methodologies

Critical Race Theory may use a variety of methodologies, including

• Interest convergence: investigating whether marginalized groups only achieve progress when dominant groups benefit as well
• Intersectional theory: investigating how multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage around race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. operate together in complex ways
• Radical critique of the law: investigating how the law has historically been used to marginalize particular groups, such as black people, while recognizing that legal efforts are important to achieve emancipation and civil rights
• Social constructivism: investigating how race is socially constructed (rather than biologically grounded)
• Standpoint epistemology: investigating how knowledge relates to social position
• Structural determinism: investigating how structures of thought and of organizations determine social outcomes

To identify appropriate methodologies, you will need to research your chosen theory and gather what methodologies are associated with it. For the most part, we can’t assume that there are “one size fits all” methodologies.

Research skills are about how you handle materials such as library search engines, citation management programs, special collections materials, and so on.

Research methods  are about where and how you get answers to your research questions. Are you conducting interviews? Visiting archives? Doing close readings? Reviewing scholarship? You will need to choose which methods are most appropriate to use in your research and you need to gain some knowledge about how to use these methods. In other words, you need to do some research into research methods!

Your choice of research method depends on the kind of questions you are asking. For example, if you want to understand how an author progressed through several drafts to arrive at a final manuscript, you may need to do archival research. If you want to understand why a particular literary work became a bestseller, you may need to do audience research. If you want to know why a contemporary author wrote a particular work, you may need to do interviews. Usually literary research involves a combination of methods such as  archival research ,  discourse analysis , and  qualitative research  methods.

Literary research methods tend to differ from research methods in the hard sciences (such as physics and chemistry). Science research must present results that are reproducible, while literary research rarely does (though it must still present evidence for its claims). Literary research often deals with questions of meaning, social conventions, representations of lived experience, and aesthetic effects; these are questions that reward dialogue and different perspectives rather than one great experiment that settles the issue. In literary research, we might get many valuable answers even though they are quite different from one another. Also in literary research, we usually have some room to speculate about answers, but our claims have to be plausible (believable) and our argument comprehensive (meaning we don’t overlook evidence that would alter our argument significantly if it were known).

A literary researcher might select the following:

Theory: Critical Race Theory

Methodology: Social Constructivism

Method: Scholarly

Skills: Search engines, citation management

Wendy Belcher, in  Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks , identifies two main approaches to understanding literary works: looking at a text by itself (associated with New Criticism ) and looking at texts as they connect to society (associated with Cultural Studies ). The goal of New Criticism is to bring the reader further into the text. The goal of Cultural Studies is to bring the reader into the network of discourses that surround and pass through the text. Other approaches, such as Ecocriticism, relate literary texts to the Sciences (as well as to the Humanities).

The New Critics, starting in the 1940s,  focused on meaning within the text itself, using a method they called “ close reading .” The text itself becomes e vidence for a particular reading. Using this approach, you should summarize the literary work briefly and q uote particularly meaningful passages, being sure to introduce quotes and then interpret them (never let them stand alone). Make connections within the work; a sk  “why” and “how” the various parts of the text relate to each other.

Cultural Studies critics see all texts  as connected to society; the critic  therefore has to connect a text to at least one political or social issue. How and why does  the text reproduce particular knowledge systems (known as discourses) and how do these knowledge systems relate to issues of power within the society? Who speaks and when? Answering these questions helps your reader understand the text in context. Cultural contexts can include the treatment of gender (Feminist, Queer), class (Marxist), nationality, race, religion, or any other area of human society.

Other approaches, such as psychoanalytic literary criticism , look at literary texts to better understand human psychology. A psychoanalytic reading can focus on a character, the author, the reader, or on society in general. Ecocriticism  look at human understandings of nature in literary texts.

We select our research methods based on the kinds of things we want to know. For example, we may be studying the relationship between literature and society, between author and text, or the status of a work in the literary canon. We may want to know about a work’s form, genre, or thematics. We may want to know about the audience’s reading and reception, or about methods for teaching literature in schools.

Below are a few research methods and their descriptions. You may need to consult with your instructor about which ones are most appropriate for your project. The first list covers methods most students use in their work. The second list covers methods more commonly used by advanced researchers. Even if you will not be using methods from this second list in your research project, you may read about these research methods in the scholarship you find.

Most commonly used undergraduate research methods:

• Scholarship Methods:  Studies the body of scholarship written about a particular author, literary work, historical period, literary movement, genre, theme, theory, or method.
• Textual Analysis Methods:  Used for close readings of literary texts, these methods also rely on literary theory and background information to support the reading.
• Biographical Methods:  Used to study the life of the author to better understand their work and times, these methods involve reading biographies and autobiographies about the author, and may also include research into private papers, correspondence, and interviews.
• Discourse Analysis Methods:  Studies language patterns to reveal ideology and social relations of power. This research involves the study of institutions, social groups, and social movements to understand how people in various settings use language to represent the world to themselves and others. Literary works may present complex mixtures of discourses which the characters (and readers) have to navigate.
• Creative Writing Methods:  A literary re-working of another literary text, creative writing research is used to better understand a literary work by investigating its language, formal structures, composition methods, themes, and so on. For instance, a creative research project may retell a story from a minor character’s perspective to reveal an alternative reading of events. To qualify as research, a creative research project is usually combined with a piece of theoretical writing that explains and justifies the work.

Methods used more often by advanced researchers:

• Archival Methods: Usually involves trips to special collections where original papers are kept. In these archives are many unpublished materials such as diaries, letters, photographs, ledgers, and so on. These materials can offer us invaluable insight into the life of an author, the development of a literary work, or the society in which the author lived. There are at least three major archives of James Baldwin’s papers: The Smithsonian , Yale , and The New York Public Library . Descriptions of such materials are often available online, but the materials themselves are typically stored in boxes at the archive.
• Computational Methods:  Used for statistical analysis of texts such as studies of the popularity and meaning of particular words in literature over time.
• Ethnographic Methods:  Studies groups of people and their interactions with literary works, for instance in educational institutions, in reading groups (such as book clubs), and in fan networks. This approach may involve interviews and visits to places (including online communities) where people interact with literary works. Note: before you begin such work, you must have  Institutional Review Board (IRB)  approval “to protect the rights and welfare of human participants involved in research.”
• Visual Methods:  Studies the visual qualities of literary works. Some literary works, such as illuminated manuscripts, children’s literature, and graphic novels, present a complex interplay of text and image. Even works without illustrations can be studied for their use of typography, layout, and other visual features.

Regardless of the method(s) you choose, you will need to learn how to apply them to your work and how to carry them out successfully. For example, you should know that many archives do not allow you to bring pens (you can use pencils) and you may not be allowed to bring bags into the archives. You will need to keep a record of which documents you consult and their location (box number, etc.) in the archives. If you are unsure how to use a particular method, please consult a book about it. [1] Also, ask for the advice of trained researchers such as your instructor or a research librarian.

• What research method(s) will you be using for your paper? Why did you make this method selection over other methods? If you haven’t made a selection yet, which methods are you considering?
• What specific methodological approaches are you most interested in exploring in relation to the chosen literary work?
• What is your plan for researching your method(s) and its major approaches?
• What was the most important lesson you learned from this page? What point was confusing or difficult to understand?

Write your answers in a webcourse discussion page.

• Introduction to Research Methods: A Practical Guide for Anyone Undertaking a Research Project  by Catherine, Dr. Dawson
• Practical Research Methods: A User-Friendly Guide to Mastering Research Techniques and Projects  by Catherine Dawson
• Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches  by John W. Creswell  Cheryl N. Poth
• Qualitative Research Evaluation Methods: Integrating Theory and Practice  by Michael Quinn Patton
• Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches  by John W. Creswell  J. David Creswell
• Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners  by Ranjit Kumar
• Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques  by C.R. Kothari

Strategies for Conducting Literary Research Copyright © 2021 by Barry Mauer & John Venecek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Table of Contents

Ai, ethics & human agency, collaboration, information literacy, writing process, literary criticism.

• © 2023 by Angela Eward-Mangione - Hillsborough Community College
• Some of the people in the group say they do not like the film because it portrays Bella as a weak female who becomes obsessed with Edward Cullen whom she cannot marry without leaving her loving father and losing her precious mortality.
• Other people like those aspects of the film, however, arguing that the film makes them disagree with its representation of some women as meek characters.

What is Literary Criticism?

Literary Criticism is

• a research method , a type of textual research , that literary critics employ to interpret texts and debate interpretations
• a genre of argument about a specific text or a set of texts .

Key Terms: Archive, Canon ; Dialectic ; Hermeneutics ; Semiotics ; Text & Intertextuality ; Tone ; rhetoric , intersubjectivity, modernism, postmodernism.

*Alternative Article Title(s): Critical Theory

General Strategies for Engaging in Literary Criticism

Engage in rhetorical analysis.

The methods for engaging in rhetorical criticism and presenting interpretations are bounded by the values and customs of particular disciplinary communities–i.e., the conventions of particular critical schools (e.g., Critical Disability Studies or Feminist Criticism ).

Distinguish between summarizing the literary work and presenting your argument. Many students fall into the trap of spending too much time summarizing the literature being analyzed as opposed to critiquing it. As a result, it would be wise to check with your teacher regarding how much plot summary is expected. As you approach this project, remember to keep your eye on the ball: What, exactly (in one sentence) is the gist of your interpretation?

Development

One of the most strategic things you can do if you’ve assigned to write some criticism is to read other critics who are well regarded by the disciplinary community you choose to address.

How do other critics evaluate an author’s work? What literary theories do literary critics use to interpret texts or particular moments in history? Reading sample analysis papers can help you find and adopt an appropriate voice and persona. By reading samples, you can learn how others have prioritized particular criteria.

Cite Other Critics’ Interpretations of the Work

Criticism written by advanced English majors, graduate students, and literary critics may be more about what other critics have said than about the actual text. Indeed, many critics spend more time reading criticism and arguing about critical approaches than actually reading original works. However, unless you are enrolled in a literary theory course, your instructor probably wants you to focus more on interpreting the work than discussing other critical interpretations. This does not mean, however, that you should write about a literary work “blindly.” Instead, you are wise to find out what other students and critics have said about the work.

Below is a sample passage that illustrates how other critics’ works can inspire an author and guide him or her in constructing a counter argument, support an author’s interpretation, and provide helpful biographical information.

In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” was published in the June 28, 1948 issue of the New Yorker it received a response that “no New Yorker story had ever received”: hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by “bewilderment, speculation, and old-fashioned abuse.”1 It is not hard to account for this response: Jackson’s story portrays an “average” New England village with “average” citizens engaged in a deadly rite, the annual selection of a sacrificial victim by means of a public lottery, and does so quite deviously: not until well along in the story do we suspect that the “winner” will be stoned to death by the rest of the villagers.

[ Scholarship as a Conversation ]

Organization

The format for literary critiques is fairly standard:

• State your claim(s).
• Forecast your organization.
• Marshal evidence for your claim.
• Reiterate argument and elaborate on its significance.

In English classes, you may be able to assume that your readers are familiar with the work you are critiquing. Perhaps, for example, the entire class is responding to one particular work after some class discussions about it. However, if your instructor asks you to address a broader audience, you may need to provide bibliographical information for the work. In other words, you may need to cite the title, publisher, date, and pages of the work (see Citing Sources ).

Literary critiques are arguments. As such, your instructors expect you to state a claim in your introduction and then provide quotes and paraphrased statements from the text to serve as evidence for your claim. Ideally, your critique will be insightful and interesting. You’ll want to come up with an interpretation that isn’t immediately obvious. Below are some examples of “thesis statements” or “claims” from literary critiques:

• In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist is oppressed and represents the effect of the oppression of women in society. This effect is created by the use of complex symbols such as the house, the window, and the wall-paper which facilitate her oppression as well as her self expression. [“‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’: A Twist on Conventional Symbols” by Liselle Sant]
• “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman is a sad story of the repression that women face in the days of the late 1800’s as well as being representative of the turmoil that women face today. [Critique of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Brandi Mahon]
• “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story of a woman, her psychological difficulties and her husband’s so called therapeutic treatment of her aliments during the late 1800s. . . Gilman does well throughout the story to show with descriptive phrases just how easily and effectively the man “seemingly” wields his “maleness” to control the woman. But, with further interpretation and insight I believe Gilman succeeds in nothing more than showing the weakness of women, of the day, as active persons in their own as well as society’s decision making processes instead of the strength of men as women dominating machines. “The View from the Inside” by Timothy J. Decker
• In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain creates a strong opposition between the freedom of Huck and Jim’s life on the raft drifting down the Mississippi River, which represents “nature,” and the confining and restrictive life on the shore, which represents “society.” [ “‘All I wanted was a change’: Positive Images of Nature and Society in Chapter 19 of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from Professor Matthew Hurt’s “Sample Essays for English 103: Introduction to Fiction”]
• In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” an unexpected visitor comes down from the sky, and seems to test the faith of a community. The villagers have a difficult time figuring out just how the very old man with enormous wings fits into their lives. Because this character does not agree with their conception of what an angel should look like, they try to determine if the aged man could actually be an angel. In trying to prove the origin of their visitor, the villagers lose faith in the possibility of him being an angel because he does not adhere to their ordered world. Marquez keeps the identity of the very old man with enormous wings ambiguous to critique the villagers and, more generally, organized religion for having a lack of faith to believe in miracles that do not comply with their master narrative. [“Prove It: A Critique of the Villagers’ Faith in ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings'” from Sample Essays for English 103: Introduction to Fiction, Professor Matthew Hurt]

Literary criticism is a fairly specialized genre . Instead of writing to a general lay audience, you are writing to members of a literary community who have read a work and who developed opinions about the work–as well as a vocabulary of interpretation.

Across Schools of Criticism, critics share a common vocabulary of critique. Below are some common words used by literary critics.

• Protagonist: The protagonist is the major character of the story; typically the character must overcome significant challenges.
• Antagonist: The protagonist’s chief nemesis; in other words, the character whom the protagonist must overcome.
• Symbols: Metaphoric language; see A Catalogue of Symbols in The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• Viewpoint: Stories are told either in the first person or third person point of view. The first person is limited to a single character, although dialog can let you guess at other characters’ intentions. The third person allows readers inside the character’s mind so you know what the character feels and thinks.Viewpoint can be “limited,” where the character knows less than the reader, or “omniscient,” where the reader can hear the thoughts and feelings of all characters. Occasionally writers will use multiple character viewpoint, which takes you from one character’s perspective to another.
• Plot: Plots are a series of scenes, typically moving from a conflict situation to a resolution. To surprise readers, authors will foreshadow “false plants,” which lead readers to anticipate other resolutions. The term “denouement” refers to the unraveling of the plot in the conclusion.

Cite from the Work

Literary criticism involves close reading of a literary work, regardless of whether you are arguing about a particular interpretation, comparing stories or poems, or using a theory to interpret literature. The purpose of the document is not to inform the readers, but to argue a particular interpretation. You only need to cite parts of the work that support or relate to your argument and follow the citation format required by your instructor

What are Schools of Literary Criticism?

Literary theory and criticism have existed from classical through contemporary times. Over time, schools of criticism have evolved as critics (aka communities of practitioners) have introduced new ideas about texts and intertextuality , rhetoric , intersubjectivity, modernism, postmodernism.

Schools of Literary Criticism include

Critical Disability Studies

Feminist criticism, lgbtq + criticism, marxist criticism, new historicist criticism, post-colonial criticism, post-structuralist, deconstructive criticism, psychological criticism, reader-response criticism, russian formalism and new criticism, structuralist criticism.

Most schools of literary criticism draw extensively on the work of other theorists and critics, while others concentrate on the reader’s thoughts and feelings. Additionally, some theorists analyze a work from an historical perspective, while others focus solely on a close reading of a text.

The first step in formulating a critical argument is to assume a rhetorical stance that engages a type, school, or approach of literary criticism. The critical approach you employ to engage in textual analysis will shape the content of your interpretation.

[ Rhetorical Stance | Rhetorical Reasoning ]

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Marxist Criticism refers to a method you’ll encounter in literary and cultural analysis. It breaks down texts and societal structures using foundational concepts like class, alienation, base, and superstructure. By...

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What Is Literary Criticism and Theory?

• First Online: 24 June 2023

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• Wayne Deakin 2  

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This chapter provides an overall assessment of the broad definitions of what are literary criticism and theory. It also provides a survey of some of the key movements within literary criticism, for example the trend for more politicised criticism after the second World War. In so doing , it holds in sharp relief thinkers such as F.R. Leavis and C. Achebe. It raises questions about the possible gains and potential pitfalls of theory in its modern manifestation, and also raises questions about the pervasiveness of political pathologies, which it is argued, are inherent in modern criticism.

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5 The monthly review Scutiny not only ran for 76 issues, but also had contributors and readers as diverse as George Santayana, Aldous Huxley, T.S. Eliot, William Empson and I.A. Richards.

Roland Barthes in “The Death of the Author” in David Lodge (ed), Modern Criticism and Theory , New York: Longman, 1991. pp. 167–172.

Roland Barthes, “Reflexions sur un manuel,” in L’Enseignement de la littera Serge Doubrovsky and Tzvetan Todorov (Paris, 1971) p. 170. (The author’s translation).

“An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’” Massachusetts Review. 18. 1977; pp. 7.

Peter Cheyne writes in his tome Coleridge’s Contemplative Philosophy, (London: OUP; p. 262) “By 1829, in Church and State , Coleridge recommends ‘a national clerisy’ to disseminate the liberal arts and sciences, thereby to serve as ‘an essential element of a rightly constituted nation’, securing both its permanence and its progression. He is sometimes cited as coining the word ‘clerisy’ (he was first to use it in English), although in doing so he effectively translates Kant’s Klerisei . Klerisei is standard German for clergy , but Kant uses the word for an idealizing church of reason to free faith from historical forms and direct it towards the moral law discoverable by reason. While Kant suggested the term, however, Coleridge thoroughly developed the notion from his 1818 revision of The Friend to its fullest form in Church and State (1829/30).”

Historical or Higher Criticism is a form of literary analysis that investigates the origins of a text . And is contrasted with lower criticism (or textual criticism), whose goal is to determine the original form of a text from among the variants and is more connected to the recent scholarship of Close Reading . It is historically linked to the work of the German Biblical School of Hermeneutics as practiced by the scholars of the Tübingen School, led by Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834). As with Kant’s notion of a “clerisy” These Germanic scholarly ideas in part emigrated to England under the tutelage of Coleridge.

Lévi-Strauss, as we shall see in the chapter on structuralism, coined the phrase “mythemes” from the linguistic structural study of Ferdinand de Saussure and the binary nature of linguistic phonemes.

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Deakin, W. (2023). What Is Literary Criticism and Theory?. In: Modern Language, Philosophy and Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30494-1_1

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Head Instruction and Assessment

Preparation

1.       Read the work. Read it again. Take notes.

2.       Select a topic to discuss in your paper. If you are having trouble formulating a topic you may wish to ask yourself questions about the work (see “Questions to Answer” below). The answers to your questions may lead to a good topic.

3.       Focus the topic into a thesis . A thesis is a sentence or two that states what you think is meaningful or interesting about the work. It should be something that is debatable, provocative, and of the appropriate scope for your assignment.   At the very least, have an idea or theme to explore.

4.       Support your argument with research.   When you write, the bulk of your paper should include a discussion of the details from the work that support your thesis. You do research to find criticism (secondary sources) that allows you to expand upon your discussion.

Questions to Answer

Research often begins with a question. The answers to the following questions could lead you to a topic worth discussing in your paper.

What elements (characters, setting, themes, images, etc.) are particularly interesting? Do these seem to have a deeper significance?

What would you say the work is about? Besides a literal interpretation, can the elements of the work be understood to represent (symbolically, allegorically) something in the real world?

What is the overall tone of the work? How does this influence the depiction of people and events?

What is the source of conflict, problems, or tension? How are these resolved? Are any unresolved?

Do the characters change? How do they change? Why do they change? What changes them?

Does there seem to be a message, moral, or lesson to be learned? How do the elements express or reinforce the message? Are there any contradictory or ambiguous messages?

Are there questions left unanswered in the end? Are there clues that infer possible answers?

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Literary Research: General Literary Theory & Criticism Resources

Theory vs. criticism.

From: Stevens, Anne H.  Literary Theory and Criticism: An Introduction . Second edition., Broadview Press, 2021.

"In general, literary theory refers to writings that deal with the underlying principles associated with the study of literature, language, interpretation, culture, and all sorts of related issues. Many of the thinkers who have shaped major theoretical approaches to literature come from areas outside the boundaries of traditional literary studies, especially in fields such as philosophy and the social sciences. Literary criticism usually refers to analysis of a particular work or works: studies of individual authors, genres, literary movements, and the like.

The two terms are closely related, however, since both literary theorists and literary critics study literary texts using a theoretical framework. One way of conceiving of the difference between the two relates to the underlying aims of the writing. A work of literary theory might use literary texts as examples or illustrations that serve to develop a larger theoretical point, while a literary critic might use a theoretical perspective as a means of better understanding a literary text. The distinction is quite subtle and subjective, though, because these two sides -- theory and criticism -- constantly reinforce each other."

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• Oxford Bibliographies: Literary and Critical Theory Scholarly, annotated summaries and listings of the significant sources in Literary and Critical Theory.

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Literary criticism is the comparison, analysis, interpretation, and/or evaluation of works of literature. Literary criticism is essentially an opinion, supported by evidence, relating to theme, style, setting or historical or political context. It usually includes discussion of the work’s content and integrates one's own ideas with other insights gained from research. Literary criticism may have a positive or a negative bias and may be a study of an individual piece of literature or an author’s body of work.

Although criticism may include some of the following elements in order to support an idea, literary criticism is NOT a plot summary, a biography of the author, or simply finding fault with the literature.

Researching, reading, and writing works of literary criticism will help you to make better sense of the work, form judgments about literature, and study ideas from different points of view.

Examples of some types of literary criticism are:

• Biographical
• Comparative
• Psychological
• Theoretical

Literary criticism can be found collected in book form (use the catalog link to the left to search for it), or through the following sources.

• Gale Literary Criticism This link opens in a new window Explore an authoritative source of literary criticism, summarizing authors' lives and works and including excerpts from scholarly articles. IMPORTANT NOTE: Because this source is an encyclopedic work, it should NEVER be directly cited. Always look up the original source of the excerpted and reprinted articles. Coverage: varies. Mostly full text.
• Literary Index (Gale Literary Sets) This link opens in a new window Search a master index to the major literature books published by Gale, including Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and Poetry Criticism. Coverage: historical to present. Citations only.
• Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism, The This link opens in a new window The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism is a resource for scholars and students of literary theory and discourse. Compiled by 275 specialists from around the world, the Guide presents a comprehensive historical survey of the field's most important figures, schools, and movements and is updated annually. It includes more than 300 alphabetically arranged entries and subentries on critics and theorists, critical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods. Full text.

You can also search these databases for literary criticism, it may help to use the keyword "criticism" in your search.

• MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association) with Full Text This link opens in a new window Search for scholarly, international journals, books, and more, covering language, literature, composition, folklore, and film. Coverage: late 19th century to present. Some full text.
• Essay and General Literature Index This link opens in a new window Search chapters and essays contained in books of collected works, focusing on humanities and social sciences, including works published in the United States, Great Britain and Canada. This index covers archaeology, folklore, architecture, history, art, linguistics, literature, music, classical studies, poetry, drama, political science, economics, religion women's studies, and film. Coverage: 1985 to present. Citations only.
• Humanities Source This link opens in a new window Access journals, books and other published sources from around the world in all aspects of the humanities, including archaeology, area studies, art, classical studies, dance, film, gender studies, history, journalism, linguistics, literature, music, performing arts, philosophy, and religion. For citation searching: click "Cited References" at the top of the search screen. Coverage: late 1800s to present. Some full text.
• Humanities and Social Sciences Retrospective This link opens in a new window Search for articles from English-language periodicals on subjects including anthropology, archaeology, art, classical studies, criminal justice, environmental studies, ethics, gender studies, international relations, law, literature, music, performing arts, philosophy, political science, psychiatry, psychology, religion and sociology. Use the library's "Get It!" button to obtain materials with no direct full text link. Coverage: 1907-1984. Citations only.
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What is literary criticism?

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Literary criticism can be found most often in critical books and scholarly articles. Critical books provide in-depth, scholarly, expert analysis of your topic. Scholarly articles also provide expert analysis, and are usually peer-reviewed, a process by which articles are reviewed by other scholars in the same field of study before being published. Peer review is an important step in the scholarly publishing process. To learn more about peer review, watch the video below. 

What is peer review?

Video transcript

Find Literary Criticism

Find literary criticism in both books and journals using the resources below. A complete list of literary criticism databases can be found on the UH Libraries website . 

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What Is Literary Criticism & Student vs Scholarly Literary Criticism

What is literary criticism.

• Compare Two Texts: Student vs. Scholarly

Literary criticism is analysis, interpretation and evaluation of authors and their works of literature, which can include novels, short stories, essays, plays and poetry.

Literary "criticism" is not necessarily negative; "criticism" means a thoughtful critique of an author's work or an author's style in order to better understand the meaning, symbolism or influences of a particular piece or a body of literature.

Literary critical analysis may be written for the general public, students, or a scholarly audience.

Popular literary criticism is written for the general public. Local newspapers, such as the Seattle Times , and magazines, such as Entertainment Weekly  or O , contain book reviews that generally provide brief summaries and recommendations. Some reviews for the general public, such as those found in The New Yorker  or The New York Times Book Review  may offer insightful analysis and discussion.

Introductory analysis for students introduce literary works, authors, and critical perspectives, without presenting original criticism. Look for Topic & Overviews in the database Gale Literature or historical, cultural, and biographical overviews. 

Scholarly literary criticism is generally found in scholarly literary journals, such as Critique  or The Journal of Ethnic Fiction , as well as in some books. Scholarly literary criticism presents original and sophisticated analysis for an academic audience.

Features of Scholarly Literary Criticism

Most, though not all, scholarly analysis goes through a rigorous peer review process by other experts in the field before publication. 

Scholarly literary criticism engages with a written work in a thoughtful, sophisticated, and sustained manner. While literary criticism from a reference book provides you with introductory terminology, context, an overview of interpretation, and more, scholarly criticism presents an original interpretation of a text.

Scholarly literary criticism analyzes specific passages, characters, themes, and/ or language, from a written work.

Scholarly literary criticism brings the critic's particular theoretical framework, biases, and questions, to bear upon the text.

Articles are written by scholars in a subject area for an academic or professional audience. Check for author affiliations or credentials in the database record or at the beginning or end of an article.

Scholarly literary criticism may be extensively cited, if the author references the work of other thinkers. Some scholarly literary criticism engages primarily and closely with the text itself, rather than with other the ideas of other scholars. (Scholarly articles in the sciences and social sciences are, as a rule, extensively and thoroughly cited.)

There is no one correct scholarly reading of a text. That said, be sure to build your own analysis with examples and support from the written work you're analyzing, as well as the other scholarly sources with which you are "conversing."

Comparing Texts

Below you will find two article excerpts from analyses of "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker. 

• Everyday Use
• Fight vs. Flight: A Re-Evaluation of Dee in Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use.'

"Everyday Use"

( Topic and Work Overview from Gale Literary Sources. This article provides an i ntroduction to themes and literary criticism of the book, and does not present its own original insight.  )

When “Everyday Use” appeared in a 1973 collection of short stories, In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women, reviewers of the book recognized the uniqueness of Alice Walker’s portrayals of African-American women’s experiences. Jerry H. Bryant, for instance, described Walker in The Nation as a writer “probing for the hitherto undisclosed alpha and beta rays of black existence.” Critics also enthused over Walker’s artistic abilities, most agreeing with Barbara Smith, who wrote in Ms. magazine that “Walker’s perceptions, style, and artistry . . . consistently . . . make her work a treasure, particularly for those of us whom her work describes.” While “Everyday Use” was singled out for praise by several critics, it has since achieved great prominence within the opus of Walker’s work. Several admiring articles have been written about it, and in 1994, Barbara Christian published Everyday Use, an entire book of essays built around this one story. As Christian wrote in the book’s introduction, the story has come to be recognized as an exemplary, foundational piece for several of Walker’s primary interests as a writer. She noted, for instance, that like many other works by Walker, it “placed African American women’s voices at the center of the narrative, an unusual position at the time.”

Telling African-American women’s stories with honesty, and placing such previously unrecognized women on center stage to tell and act out their own stories, was a method Walker used to great success and acclaim in her 1982 novel, The Color Purple. Thanks in large part to Walker (who in turn gives much of the credit to Zora Neale Hurston), this narrative method, exemplified in “Everyday Use,” has since become a standard technique for many black women writers, including Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison, Terry McMillan, and Toni Cade Bambara. The story’s central symbol of quilting also resonates beyond the story itself. Gathering loose bits of material into beautiful, meaningful quilts has long been a form of African-American art, but as Walker realized, this and other forms of women’s art have often been overlooked by the establishment. This short, rich story also announces Walker’s response to her contemporaries’ wish to speak for all blacks in African-nationalist terms: a viewpoint extremely popular in the early 1970s. As a writer with black feminist insight, Walker gives voice in this story “to an entire maternal ancestry often silenced by the political rhetoric of the period,” quoted Christian. Finally, this story also stands out as an example of Walker’s answer to many black intellectuals who have stressed the need to leave old, rural ways behind in order to improve their economic and political standing. Walker’s depiction of the quiet dignity of Maggie and Mrs. Johnson has been recognized as an appreciation for what rural Southern black folk are, not what they should become. Much of Walker’s critical acclaim focuses on the integrity she imparts to her characters, no matter what their circumstances.

"Fight vs. Flight: A Re-Evaluation of Dee in Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use'"

( Scholarly Source - This article steps into the academic "conversation" on the story, reviewing how other critics have interpreted the story, before stating its original approach.  )  

Most readers of Alice Walker's short story, "Everyday Use," published in her 1973 collection, In Love and Trouble, agree that the point of the story is to show, as Nancy Tuten argues, a mother's "awakening to one daughter's superficiality and to the other's deep-seated understanding of heritage" (Tuten 125).1 These readers praise the "simplicity" of Maggie and her mother, along with their allegiance to their specific family identity and folk heritage as well as their refusal to change at the whim of an outside world that doesn't really have much to do with them. Such a reading condemns the older, more worldly sister, Dee, as "shallow," "condescending," and "manipulative," as overly concerned with style, fashion, and aesthetics, and thus as lacking a "true" understanding of her heritage. In this essay, conversely, I will argue that this popular view is far too simple a reading of the story. While Dee is certainly insensitive and selfish to a certain degree, she nevertheless offers a view of heritage and a strategy for contemporary African Americans to cope with an oppressive society that is, in some ways, more valid than that offered by Mama and Maggie.

We must remember from the beginning that the story is told by Mama; the perceptions are filtered through her mind and her views of her two daughters are not to be accepted uncritically. Several readers have pointed out that Mama's view of Maggie is not quite accurate--that Maggie is not as passive or as "hangdog" as she appears.2 Might Mama's view of her older daughter, Dee, not be especially accurate as well? Dee obviously holds a central place in Mama's world. The story opens with the line: "I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon" (47). As Houston Baker points out, "The mood at the story's beginning is one of ritualistic waiting," of preparation "for the arrival of a goddess" (715). Thus, Dee seems to attain almost mythic stature in Mama's imagination as she and Maggie wait for the as-yet unnamed "her" to appear. Such an opening may lead readers to suspect that Mama has a rather troubled relationship with her older daughter. Dee inspires in Mama a type of awe and fear more suitable to the advent of a goddess than the love one might expect a mother to feel for a returning daughter.

Mama, in fact, displaces what seem to be her own fears onto Maggie when she speculates that Maggie will be cowed by Dee's arrival. Mama conjectures that

Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her.(47)

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ENGL 1302 SO: General Literary Criticism Research

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Generally, the best sources for literary criticism are in the reference section of each TCC Campus Library. Literary criticism can be difficult to locate.  Knowledgeable librarians are always available to help you in person or online.

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Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism  seeks original, well-researched, and intellectually rigorous essays written from diverse critical perspectives and about texts from any time period or literary tradition. We are now accepting submissions for our Winter 2024 issue .

We invite submissions that address texts from different times and places that could help us navigate current issues. Humans have been adapting their environments to suit their needs for millennia, but over the past three centuries, the relationship between humans and their environments has changed drastically. Technological advances have changed the way humans live, work, and interact with each other. As technology advances at an ever-increasing rate, the relationship between humans and technology has become more complex. While in many ways technological advances benefit humans, some advances may be detrimental.

Submissions should be between 3,000 and 6,000 words (not including the bibliography). While not every submission need respond or even relate directly to the prompt, we will prioritize submissions concerning the topic of  the intersection between humanity and technology . All submissions should be double-spaced, written in English, and formatted according to the most recent MLA guidelines. Submissions should be uploaded through our online submission system. ( https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/ ).

We prioritize undergraduate submissions, but will consider submissions from those who have recently graduated and students pursuing a master's degree. Because we want to help undergraduates publish their work, we do not publish essays by PhD candidates or research scholars.

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Syner’s Essay Wins Second Place at 2024 Southern Literary Festival

Mary Frances Dickie

April 23, 2024

"I appreciate the ways that literary criticism and research can bring an entirely new viewpoint and make me question what the work is truly about."

Patricia Syner, a senior creative writing major at Millsaps, recently earned second place in the 2024 Southern Literary Festival’s Formal Essay category. Her essay, “On a Dark and Stormy Screen: Bringing ‘Frankenstein’ to Life in Black and White Film,” analyzes the implications and effects of adapting the Mary Shelley novel in that medium.

Syner, from Meridian, Miss., wrote her essay for her senior seminar class. English literature and creative writing students must complete a senior seminar course focused on one or more works of literature to graduate.

This year, Dr. Anne MacMaster centered the seminar around “Frankenstein,” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and adaptations of these novels. Syner shares that in her essay, she wanted to give the 1930s “Frankenstein” films their due for using technological limitations – specifically black and white film – to translate the imagery in Shelley’s novel.

“I appreciate the ways that literary criticism and research can bring an entirely new viewpoint and make me question what the work is truly about,” Syner said.

In her essay, Syner argues that capturing the films in black and white allowed the directors to catch the persistent interplay of darkness, light and the elements that haunt Shelley’s novel. Though these films of the 1930s took significant liberties with the source material’s plot points, settings and even character names, she says, “I couldn’t ignore how their aesthetics evoked a true eeriness and complicated sympathy for the creature.”

Syner studied critical analyses of Classical-era film visuals and aesthetics to build her argument. In her research, she says she, “looked specifically for how authors commented on themes of horror and the uncanny using specific film vocabulary like ‘lighting’ and ‘set design.’”

It took some determination to find analyses dedicated specifically to the effects of lighting in black-and-white Classical-Era horror films. For researchers, this can be a blessing and a curse. “’Frankenstein’ films seemed to have fallen into the abyss as far as study on their lighting and other techniques go,” Syner acknowledged. “Though, I was happy my paper wasn’t rehashing a worn-out point.”

She attended the Southern Literary Festival in Oxford, Miss., to present her second-place essay. Her writing placed alongside students from Lipscomb University and the University of North Georgia.

Impressively, the festival fit into Syner’s already busy schedule. In addition to majoring in creative writing, she is minoring in film studies and Spanish . She co-edits the Stylus, Millsaps’ literary magazine, with fellow senior Brittany Wilson, acts with the Millsaps Players, works with Millsaps’ Digital Welty Lab and interns with the University Press of Mississippi.

Syner plans to continue writing after graduating in May. She hopes to pursue a career in publishing with a focus on editing or acquisitions while building her creative writing portfolio for submission to different publications. Her Millsaps education and success as a writer and researcher will be a strong foundation in every path she pursues.

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How the American middle class has changed in the past five decades

The middle class, once the economic stratum of a clear majority of American adults, has steadily contracted in the past five decades. The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data.

From 2020: Are you in the American middle class? Find out with our income calculator

The shrinking of the middle class has been accompanied by an increase in the share of adults in the upper-income tier – from 14% in 1971 to 21% in 2021 – as well as an increase in the share who are in the lower-income tier, from 25% to 29%. These changes have occurred gradually, as the share of adults in the middle class decreased in each decade from 1971 to 2011, but then held steady through 2021.

The analysis below presents seven facts about how the economic status of the U.S. middle class and that of America’s major demographic groups have changed since 1971. A related analysis examines the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the financial well-being of households in the lower-, middle- and upper-income tiers, with comparisons to the Great Recession era. (In the source data for both analyses, demographic figures refer to the 1971-2021 period, while income figures refer to the 1970-2020 period. Thus, the shares of adults in an income tier are based on their household incomes in the previous year.)

This report analyzes data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplements (ASEC) of the Current Population Survey (CPS) to study how the economic status of the American middle class has changed since 1971. It also examines the movement of demographic groups in and out of the American middle class and across lower- and upper-income tiers from 1971 to 2021.

The CPS is the U.S. government’s official source for monthly estimates of unemployment ; the ASEC, conducted in March each year, is the official source for its estimates of income and poverty . The COVID-19 outbreak has affected data collection efforts by the U.S. government in its surveys, limiting in-person data collection and affecting the response rate. It is possible that some measures of economic outcomes and how they vary across demographic groups are affected by these changes in data collection. This report makes use of updated weights released by the Census Bureau to correct for nonresponse in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

In this analysis, “middle-income” adults in 2021 are those with an annual household income that was two-thirds to double the national median income in 2020, after incomes have been adjusted for household size, or about $52,000 to $156,000 annually in 2020 dollars for a household of three. “Lower-income” adults have household incomes less than $52,000 and “upper-income” adults have household incomes greater than $156,000.

The income it takes to be middle income varies by household size, with smaller households requiring less to support the same lifestyle as larger households. The boundaries of the income tiers also vary across years with changes in the national median income. Read the methodology for more details.

The terms “middle income” and “middle class” are used interchangeably in this analysis for the sake of exposition. But being middle class can refer to more than just income, be it the level of education, the type of profession, economic security, home ownership, or one’s social and political values. Class also could simply be a matter of self-identification.

Household incomes have risen considerably since 1970, but those of middle-class households have not climbed nearly as much as those of upper-income households. The median income of middle-class households in 2020 was 50% greater than in 1970 ($90,131 vs. $59,934), as measured in 2020 dollars. These gains were realized slowly, but for the most part steadily, with the exception of the period from 2000 to 2010, the so-called “ lost decade ,” when incomes fell across the board.

The median income for lower-income households grew more slowly than that of middle-class households, increasing from $20,604 in 1970 to $29,963 in 2020, or 45%.

The rise in income from 1970 to 2020 was steepest for upper-income households. Their median income increased 69% during that timespan, from $130,008 to $219,572.

As a result of these changes, the gap in the incomes of upper-income and other households also increased. In 2020, the median income of upper-income households was 7.3 times that of lower-income households, up from 6.3 in 1970. The median income of upper-income households was 2.4 times that of middle-income households in 2020, up from 2.2 in 1970.

The share of aggregate U.S. household income held by the middle class has fallen steadily since 1970. The widening of the income gap and the shrinking of the middle class has led to a steady decrease in the share of U.S. aggregate income held by middle-class households. In 1970, adults in middle-income households accounted for 62% of aggregate income, a share that fell to 42% in 2020.

Meanwhile, the share of aggregate income accounted for by upper-income households has increased steadily, from 29% in 1970 to 50% in 2020. Part of this increase reflects the rising share of adults who are in the upper-income tier.

The share of U.S. aggregate income held by lower-income households edged down from 10% to 8% over these five decades, even though the proportion of adults living in lower-income households increased over this period.

Older Americans and Black adults made the greatest progress up the income ladder from 1971 to 2021. Among adults overall, the share who were in the upper-income tier increased from 14% in 1971 to 21% in 2021, or by 7 percentage points. Meanwhile, the share in the lower-income tier increased from 25% to 29%, or by 4 points. On balance, this represented a net gain of 3 percentage points in income status for all adults.

Those ages 65 and older made the most notable progress up the income ladder from 1971 to 2021. They increased their share in the upper-income tier while reducing their share in the lower-income tier, resulting in a net gain of 25 points. Progress among adults 65 and older was likely driven by an increase in labor force participation , rising educational levels and by the role of Social Security payments in reducing poverty.

Black adults, as well as married men and women, were also among the biggest gainers from 1971 to 2021, with net increases ranging from 12 to 14 percentage points.

On the other hand, not having at least a bachelor’s degree resulted in a notable degree of economic regression over this period. Adults with a high school diploma or less education, as well as those with some college experience but no degree, saw sizable increases in their shares in the lower-income tier in the past five decades. Although no single group of adults by education category moved up the income ladder from 1971 to 2021, adults overall realized gains by boosting their education levels . The share of adults 25 and older who had completed at least four years of college stood at 38% in 2021, compared with only 11% in 1971.

Progress up the income ladder for a demographic group does not necessarily signal its economic status in comparison with other groups at a given point in time. For example, in 2021, adults ages 65 and older and Black adults were still more likely than many other groups to be lower income, and less likely to be middle or upper income.

Married adults and those in multi-earner households made more progress up the income ladder from 1971 to 2021 than their immediate counterparts. Generally, partnered adults have better outcomes on a range of economic outcomes than the unpartnered. One reason is that marriage is increasingly linked to educational attainment , which bears fruit in terms of higher incomes.

Married men and women were distributed across the income tiers identically to each other in both 1971 and 2021. Both groups nearly doubled their shares in the upper-income tier in the past five decades, from 14% in 1971 to 27% in 2021. And neither group experienced an increase in the share in the lower-income tier.

Unmarried men and women were much more likely than their married counterparts to be in the lower-income tier in 2021. And unmarried men, in particular, experienced a sizable increase in their share in the lower-income tier from 1971 t0 2021 and a similarly large decrease in their share in the middle-income tier. Nonetheless, unmarried men are less likely than unmarried women to be lower income and more likely to be middle income.

Adults in households with more than one earner fare much better economically than adults in households with only one earner. In 2021, some 20% of adults in multi-earner households were in the lower-income tier, compared with 53% of adults in single-earner households. Also, adults in multi-earner households were more than twice as likely as adults in single-earner households to be in the upper-income tier in 2021. In the long haul, adults in single-earner households are among the groups who slid down the income ladder the most from 1971 to 2021.

Despite progress, Black and Hispanic adults trail behind other groups in their economic status. Although Black adults made some of the biggest strides up the income tiers from 1971 to 2021, they, along with Hispanic adults, are more likely to be in the lower-income tier than are White or Asian adults. About 40% of both Black and Hispanic adults were lower income in 2021, compared with 24% of White adults and 22% of Asian adults.

Black adults are the only major racial and ethnic group that did not experience a decrease in its middle-class share, which stood at 47% in 2021, about the same as in 1971. White adults are the only group in which more than half (52%) lived in middle-class households in 2021, albeit after declining from 63% in 1971. At the top end, only about one-in-ten Black and Hispanic adults were upper income in 2021, compared with one-in-four or more White and Asian adults.

The relative economic status of men and women has changed little from 1971 to 2021. Both experienced similar percentage point increases in the shares in the lower- and upper-income tiers, and both saw double-digit decreases in the shares who are middle class. Women remained more likely than men to live in lower-income households in 2021 (31% vs. 26%).

Adults 65 and older continue to lag economically, despite decades of progress. The share of adults ages 65 and older in the lower-income tier fell from 54% in 1971 to 37% in 2021. Their share in the middle class rose from 39% to 47% and their share in the upper-income tier increased from 7% to 16%. However, adults 65 and older are the only age group in which more than one-in-three adults are in lower-income households, and they are much less likely than adults ages 30 to 44 – as well as those ages 45 to 64 – to be in the upper-income tier.

All other age groups experienced an increase in the shares who are lower income from 1971 to 2021, as well as a decrease in the shares who are middle income. But they also saw increases in the shares who are upper income. Among adults ages 30 to 44, for instance, the share in upper-income households almost doubled, from 12% in 1971 to 21% in 2021.

There is a sizable and growing income gap between adults with a bachelor’s degree and those with lower levels of education. In 2021, about four-in-ten adults with at least a bachelor’s degree (39%) were in the upper-income tier, compared with 16% or less among those without a bachelor’s degree. The share of adults in the upper-income tier with at least a bachelor’s degree edged up from 1971 to 2021, while the share without a bachelor’s degree either edged down or held constant.

About half or a little more of adults with either some college education or a high school diploma only were in the middle class in 2021. But these two groups, along with those with less than a high school education, experienced notable drops in their middle class shares from 1971 to 2021 – and notable increases in the shares in the lower-income tier. In 2021, about four-in-ten adults with only a high school diploma or its equivalent (39%) were in the lower-income tier, about double the share in 1971.

Note: Here is the methodology for this analysis.

• Economic Inequality
• Income & Wages
• Middle Class

Rakesh Kochhar is a senior researcher at Pew Research Center

Stella Sechopoulos is a former research assistant focusing on social and demographic trends research at Pew Research Center

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Prominent literary organization PEN America has canceled its annual awards ceremony, which was due to be held next week, after 28 authors chose to withdraw their books from consideration. The group has faced increasing backlash over its response to the Israel-Hamas War . Among those dropping out was debut novel finalist Rachel Eliza Griffiths, wife of former PEN president Salman Rushdie, according to the Associated Press.

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The decision to cancel the awards comes in the wake of escalating upset against PEN America. A series of open letters signed by PEN nominees in recent weeks have criticized the group for allegedly choosing sides against Gaza in the war that started after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the BBC reported . According to LitHub, more than 1,000 writers and poets have signed an open letter to the organization, calling on it to “find the same zeal and passion that they have for banned books in the U.S. to speak out about actual human beings in Palestine.”

In another letter , released in March, Naomi Klein was among a prominent group of writers who announced they were pulling out of this year’s PEN World Voices Festival saying, “In the context of Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, we believe that PEN America has betrayed the organization’s professed commitment to peace and equality for all, and to freedom and security for writers everywhere.”

Also on Monday, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Wendy Vanden Heuvel and Bill Clegg, on behalf of the foundation and the Literary Estate of Jean Stein, provided a statement reading, “Jean Stein was a passionate advocate for Palestinian rights who published, supported, and celebrated Palestinian writers and visual artists.  While she established the PEN America award in her name to bring attention to and provide meaningful support to writers of the highest literary achievement, we know she would have respected the stance and sacrifice of the writers who have withdrawn from contention this year. To honor their decision the Estate of Jean Stein has directed PEN America to donate the $75,000 award to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.”

Although there will be no ceremony this year, PEN America said it “is honored to recognize the career achievement winners including playwright Tony Kushner for the 2024 PEN/Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award.” Rachel Zegler, who starred in the 2021 Kushner-Steven Spielberg adaptation of West Side Story , had been due to present the award during the now-canceled ceremony.

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