"Despite the usual connotations of the word “criticism,” literary criticism is called criticism not because it is negative or corrective but rather because those who write criticism ask searching, analytical, "critical" questions about the works they read. Literary criticism is both the process of interpreting and commenting on literature and the result of that process."
This passage from the textbook gave me a new way to think about the word “criticism.” I always thought of criticism as a way to talk about what is wrong with something, but the textbook says it is not limited to negative remarks. It ...