Criticism is an activity, which deals with analyzing and then evaluating, either positively or negatively, a literary work. Criticism is also, among other issues, a process of forming the opinion, the judgment, which a person has about a situation, person or artistic work. This type of activity is as old as literature itself and there are testimonies of it dating back to classical antiquity.
The literary criticism, therefore, is the evaluative analysis of works of literature (novels, short stories, poems, etc.). The concept is usually used concerning the newspaper article or the media discourse that is carried out on one of these works, highlighting its positive aspects and its negative characteristics according to the opinion of the critic in question.
The language, the rhetoric, and aesthetics are some of the aspects considered literary criticism at the time of the valuation of the works. There are literary critiques based on methodological rigor and others more focused on subjectivity.
It can be said that literary criticism analyzes and exposes: it carries out a study of the characteristics of the texts and then analyzes their successes and their failures. The result supposes the positive or negative evaluation of the works.
There is no single model of literary criticism. Sometimes, the approach has a methodological character, and work is studied from a technical and analytical point of view. On the contrary, there is the most subjective approach, in which a critic makes his personal opinion known in relation to the literary creation of an author.
Criticism frequently appears in the mass media (especially the press) and serves as a reference for before reading a particular work. There are some specialized journals that also perform this type of analysis.
Consequently, literary criticism seeks to fulfill a basic function: to guide the reader. For this function to be effective, it must be done in a clear and effective way. Literary criticism is usually carried out by someone with a qualified education: a philologist, a historian of literature, a student of some area of ​​the literary world or a specialized journalist.
The function of the critic is to deepen into a work. For this, he needs to understand the historical context, the life and circumstances of the author, the movement to which he belongs and the creative currents that can influence him. With these and other elements, it is possible to analyze a novel, a comedy or a collection of poems. The result of the criticism is especially useful to know all the elements that make up the literary creation.
The idea of literary criticism can be extended to other artistic activities: cinema, art or dance. In any of its modalities, the professional of the critic plays a key role, since it can facilitate the success or cause the failure with his evaluations.
It is thought that criticism in literature has existed from the time of Aristotle. It can be divided into Classical and Medieval criticism, Renaissance criticism, 19th-century Romantic criticism and the New Criticism according to the different periods respectively.
The psychoanalytic criticism on "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".