A Level English Literature Critics

(Original post by magspie)
Hey! So I'm not sure if you have moved this question onto another forum, but a good place to find specific critics would be the Directory of Open Access Journals.
On this first page you can search for the name of your book, make sure that 'journals' is unticked, and 'articles' is ticked. This will bring you to a list of free-access academic articles about that book. You can then scroll down through until you find a relevant title, click on it, and read the abstract for an overview of the critic's argument- at A-Level there is no need to read the whole article.

So for example, if you type in 'wuthering heights', the first seemingly feminist criticism is on page 2, and the title is 'Fighting back against the Encroachment of Patriarchal Power on Female Domains in Wuthering Heights'. This article is by the critic, Banu Akcesme, and from the abstract I have selected the quote, 'The female characters are disconnected not only from their domestic households and nature but also from female bonds.'

To integrate a particular critical response into your writing you would therefore explain the general feminist criticism which you have already learnt, and include the critic's specific angle to help back up your argument. For this example you would write something along the lines of...

"As many feminist critics have explored, throughout Wuthering Heights men dominate, while women are trapped and subservient. Banu Akcesme elaborates on this theory, and identifies Brontë's use of physical spaces as a key way in which this theme is conveyed, explaining how 'female characters are disconnected' from traditionally feminine spaces such as their 'domestic households and nature'. Crucially, this disconnection from female spaces is, throughout, caused by the female characters' marriages, and thus effectively imposed by the male characters of the novel. The feminist reading of the trapped 'female gothic' in Wuthering Heghts is therefore borne out by Brontë's construction of space within the novel, and the male-enforced removal of her female characters from their original feminine habitats - in the case of Catherine, the nature of the moors, and Isabella, her comfortable, domestic home."

Ok, so its been a loooong time since I've read Wuthering Heights but that's the general gist of how you would incorporate a little bit of specific criticism into the general stuff you already know. I wouldn't say that you would need to do this for every critical approach to each of your novels, but having one or two up your sleeve would be handy and it's good practice for Uni anyway.

If you just want to find the seminal critics so you can write 'Marxist critics such x. x and x, would take the view that..', you could simply check out the citations at the bottom of the wikipedia article for each book or the general discipline, such as 'Marxist Literary Theory'. Obvs wikipedia is not the most reliable resource, but if you scroll down to the actual citations, the chances are you will find a website or book that is academic and accessible, and as long as they list the key critics in the field, you can research the names yourself. I know 'check wikipedia' seems like stupid advice, but as long as you use it sensibly and know where to look, it'll be fine for this level of writing.

Good luck with your exams!!