Theoretical Literary Analysis (minimum of 400 words). Your work from the previous section dealing with the literary theories should have prepared you for this one. For this analysis, you should pick a topic/issue pertaining to one or more of the literary theories you examined. For example, if you applied feminist criticism to Little Women, your topic might be “Jo March–an Allegorical Figure: Female Professionals in a Patriarchal Society.” This is but one example from the top of my head. This gives you a chance to tie into your literary theory and use a bit of what you have already established to analyze the work of literature in a deeper way. Make sure you reference at least one of the theories, but don’t depend on them too heavily.
Comparative Literary Analysis (minimum of 400 words). In this analysis, you will compare at least two different things, considering their characteristics at the deepest levels possible. These are some options. You might compare one work of literature from your author to another work of literature from your author. In such a comparison, you want of avoid superficial comparisons like publication dates. Rather, you would want to key in on something such as the tone and/or purpose of the work and how each represents a unique place in time, and, conversely, how each informed the society into which it was born. If, for example, you did your work on “The Gettysburg Address,” your topic might be “The Politics of Wartime Speeches: How ‘The Gettysburg Address’ Gained Gravity Through Circumstance.” Such an approach would let you compare it to Another Lincoln speech or to another historical wartime speech. It would also allow you to compare it to a speech of a different type, such as Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.” You could also do something a little more expected, such as comparing two characters in your work of literature, but remember that this isn’t a superficial comparison–so I want something profound from you.
Socio-cultural Analysis (minimum of 400 words). The primary thing to remember with this type of analysis is to use your research on the historical and social context to develop a thesis on how the work of literature and its context are related. However, it is vital to remember that this is not a history paper! One way to think about this methodology is as the attempt to study literature through history, asking how a the work of literature’s context can help us understand it more completely. If, for example, your project is on “The Birth-mark,” your topic might be “‘The Birth-mark,’ a Literary Manifestation of the Clash Between Science and Nature in the Early 19th Century.”
Applied Literary Analysis (minimum of 400 words). One might argue that this type of analysis is a little less formal; however, in some ways, it is more critical than the other types. One method of approaching this type analysis is to look for a message, moral, conflict, etc., etc. and apply it to today’s circumstances. You could apply it to larger social conditions, or you can apply it more specifically to individual circumstances/conditions, or both. And yet again, you have an opportunity to build on some of what you have already established in your project. For example, if you did your project on Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, your topic might be “How Policies of Institutional Racism Found in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Still Exist in Modern Society.”
