Literary Theory and Criticism Literary theory and literary
criticism are interpretive tools that help us think more deeply
and insightfully about the literature that we read. Over time,
different schools of literary criticism have developed, each
with its own approaches to the act of reading.Schools of
Interpretation Cambridge School (1920s–1930s): A group of
scholars at Cambridge University who rejected historical and
biographical analysis of texts in favor of close readings of the
texts themselves. Chicago School (1950s): A group, formed at the
University of Chicago in the 1950s, that drew on Aristotle’s
distinctions between the various elements within a narrative to
analyze the relation between form and structure. Critics and
Criticisms: Ancient and Modern (1952) is the major work of the
Chicago School. Deconstruction (1967–present): A philosophical
approach to reading, first advanced by Jacques Derrida that
attacks the assumption that a text has a single, stable meaning.
Derrida suggests that all interpre