Criticism is an integral part of the literary world. The importance of professional literary criticism is invaluable because the critic sees the work as a whole and at the same time takes into account its individual elements: the plot, composition, image system and language. The most important thing for a critic is the main idea of ​​a literary work, which the authors try to explain to the reader. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Literary criticism is generally defined as the analysis and judgment of the merits and flaws of a literary or artistic work. Literary criticism has at least three main purposes. The first purpose is to help us solve a question, problem or reading difficulty. The second is to help us decide which is better between two contrasting readings. And the third purpose is to allow us to make judgments about literature. There are several theories of criticism in the modern world. One of these is the historical or biographical approach. Historical critics see works as a reflection of an author's life and times. By knowing the authors and the political, economic and sociological context of their time, we can truly understand why such events happened and why the characters behaved in this way. It must be useful to adopt this approach to place the allusion in the proper, classical, political or biblical background of a work. However, the New Critics believe that the historical approach tends to reduce art to the level of biography and make it relative rather than universal. There are many other theories of criticism in modern literature such as formalist criticism or new criticism, psychological, mythological and feminist approaches. furthermore, the role of readers in producing the meaning of a literary work cannot be ignored. In reader response criticism, the text has no meaning until it is read by a reader who creates the meaning. According to this theory, the reader imposes his own identity on the work. Different people see works differently, and interpretations of text change over time. This type of literary criticism insists that works are not universal and do not always mean more or less the same thing to readers everywhere. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Customize essayTo summarize, we should point out that the social role of criticism is to show which book is one of the best or a prestigious one. You don't need to be a professional to express your opinion on literary works. Everyone could write about how the author evokes a particular reaction in you as a reader, what characteristics of your identity influence you in creating the interpretation, and how another reader in a different situation might interpret the work differently. Personally, I absolutely agree that the role of amateur as well as professional criticism is very important.