Literary criticism is the evaluation, comparison, analysis, or interpretation of literary works. Criticism may examine the themes in the work, look at the author's writings as a collection, analyze a work through a particular lens or school of thought, or compare works of the same theme, genre, time period, etc.).
NOTE: A book review is different from literary criticism. Book reviews summarize the book and give the reviewer's opinion on whether the book is worth reading. Authors of book reviews can intend them for a general or an academic audience.
Do some preliminary searching before settling on your topic.
Great place to start, if you need introductory information, definitions, or are looking for ideas to help you focus your topic.
Locating scholarly articles or news on the context in which your text was published can offer insight into your understanding of the story.
Available in library stacks. Books are shelved by topic, so browsing the area might be interesting once you find one relevant item!
For example, if I were researching Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find. I might look up such phrases as
Tips for searching the library catalog, OneSearch
Some books are available in library stacks, and books are shelved by topic, so browsing the area might be of interest once you find one relevant item! Others are available as eBooks. If you have trouble accessing either, do not hesitate to reach out for support.
OneSearch searches many (although not all) of the library's databases. It's a great place to start, but do not be afraid of jumping into individual databases for more comprehensive results.
Article searching often requires a narrow search with multiple terms to get the information you want. Consider searching for the author AND criticism OR analysis AND the title of the work. Once you have an idea of what is out there, you might also add another search term related to the theme or lens you are analyzing.
For example: "Flannery O'Connor" AND (criticism OR analysis) AND "A Good Man is Hard to Find" AND race