Psychological Criticisms

Psychological Criticisms treat literature as the expression of universal attributes of human consciousness. They can focus either on aspects of the work itself, or on the work as the psychological expression of the author.

There are two main types:

1. Freudian/Psychoanalytic Criticism
-Oedipal complex, libido, id, ego, superego, subconscious, repression, resistance
-Harold Bloom: strong-poet theory (authors subconsciously react to predecessors)

2. Archetype/Myth Criticism
-"collective unconscious" revealed through archetypes
-some overlap with Formalism & Structuralism
-Jung; James G. Frazier, The Golden Bough; Joseph Campbell; Northrop Frye

For more information, I recommend Culler's Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction.