literary commentary
Writing about writing
Literary commentary is writing that analyzes, interprets, or explains literary works.
It ranges from marginal notes in a student's copy of a novel to scholarly essays examining themes, technique, or historical context.
Commentary may explain difficult passages, trace influences, or argue for particular readings: The professor's commentary on Paradise Lost filled three volumes.
Distinguished from literary criticism mainly by emphasis—commentary tends toward explanation, criticism toward evaluation.
- textual analysisSystematic examination of writing
- between the linesIn implied fashion
- close readingDetailed textual analysis
- structuralismAnalysis through underlying systems
- deconstructionAnalysis exposing self-contradiction
periodization · unreliable narrator · feminist criticism · intertextuality · passage · author's intent · death of the author · Romanticism · narrative voice · genre conventions · cultural context · symbolism · allegory · hermeneutics · New Criticism · exegesis · diction · Modernism
literary commentarysource text
Origin of quoted content
creative writing · fiction · drama · literature · primary source
literary commentarycreative writing
Original literary expression
fiction writing · storytelling · imaginative writing · poetry · artistic expression
literary commentarysilent reading
Absorbing text without vocalizing
literary, commentary, literature, literate, literati, illiterate, illiteracy, literacy, literarily