Literary Criticism is discussion, analysis or appraisal of a literary work-whether a novel, poem, play, short story or essay.
As a literary critic, you will read and study a piece of literature and attempt to:
For a step by step guide on finding biographical and critical information about authors and their works checkout the Literary Criticism Research Guide.
As you might suspect, literary analysis essays are most often assigned in English courses, though they can sometimes be found elsewhere. Professors generally assign literary analysis because they are interested in your ability to:
Check out the library research guide on Literary Criticism and also the many research guides on a variety of Literary Topics that are available.