Criticism
Art, like nature, has to be distinguished from the systematic study of it, which is criticism. It is therefore impossible to "learn literature": one learns about it in a certain way, but what one learns, transitively, is the criticism of literature. Similarly, the difficulty often felt in "teaching literature" arises from the fact that it cannot be done: the criticism of literature is all that can be directly taught. Literature is not a subject of study, but an object of study...
--Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism: A Polemical Introduction
Book reviews in an age of social media are primarily a kind of marketing. What happens here is something different: an attempt to understand the breadth and depth of the stories that can be told.
Criticism Topic Archives
Criticism of Wonder
The real definition of science fiction is not the genre that deals with the social consequences of physical science, but the genre that deals with theological questions in an age which, officially, has little use for theology.
--Thomas Bertonneau, Monstrous Theologies: The Theme of Anti-Sacrifice in the Sci-Fi Pulps One
Benjamin Espen
Northrop Frye
Northrop Frye’s most famous work is the Anatomy of Criticism. In that work, Frye attempted to create a systematic approach to literary criticism that grew out of the stories themselves, a wholly internal set of criteria that are distinct from mere taste. Frye spent the rest of his career unpacking
Benjamin Espen
Book market - With Both Hands
Benjamin Espen