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As Rob Pope states in ‘ The English Studies Book' (Routledge Ed; 2002) “It is becoming increasingly uncommon to see literature as only the words on the page, the text in itself”. And this has become a necessity almost since literature gained conscious of its existence.

It is impossible to see or read a work of art without letting go an opinion being able to say that every single one of us is a critic: I liked it, I found it boring, I noticed it has something else on its core… These can be considered the natural first steps of criticism and in fact it was the kind of approaching to the art those first scholars called Literary Appreciation until the end of Nineteenth Century. This practical criticism is centred on a review of the work based exclusively on diachronic criteria and aimed to a particular potential public.

It would not be after the First World War when those belletrists would find its place in a general classification of criticism compiling that Immediate Criticism and the Mediate Criticism as the starting differentiation for Critical Literary Studies. Mediate Criticism is based not on general opinions or fashionable standards but in canons . Upon this canons the new literate critic, a cultivate and professional Philologist, would perform his labour out of the social fashions but he falls into socio-politics or philological principles that will inspire and lead (and sometimes manipulate) his critical perspective. Critical Theories such as Structuralism, Marxist Criticism, Feminism, Psychoanalytic Criticism or Postcolonial Criticism had aroused.

Just by peering the different names for those disciplinary studies about literary works it is easy to understand not only the background of their claimers, generally sociologists or philosophers more than purely poets or writers, but also the new streams of thoughts, social and intellectual revolutions and political developments that were taking place with the new century. With these basics in mind I manage to understand better what all the criticism is about and how alive it is.

Although every theory has been claming being more modern than the previous one Literary Studies and Criticism are very modern concepts, dating from the very early Twentieth Century. Maybe because of its relatively young status, this field of scholar study has been following all these literary and social movements to fit better in the literary circles, either supporting them or going against.

In the case of Structuralistic Criticism every part of the work of art is linked to each other in terms of structure and or meaning forming a web structure that ends to a core which

At best literary appreciation is a style of commentary on literary which has much in common with a good journalistic review […] it tells what the reviewer does and does not like and why (Pope; Introduction to English Studies , p. 40)

Pl. Criterion: A standard or test by which individual things , thoughts or people may be compared and judged . http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/criterion

Canon: A complete body of work considered to be authentic, particularly the books of the Scriptures (Bible) accepted as authentic, or by a particular author. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Canon . according to Pope and with a literary view; ‘the canon refers to a body of privileged and prescribed texts which are assumed to be of classic status and therefore automatically worthy of study ( Introduction to English Studies , p. 186)

Pl. Criterion: A standard or test by which individual things , thoughts or people may be compared and judged . http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/criterion

is the main idea or character performance. The work of art needs to be appreciated as a part of a whole structure. The organization of the parts is what is important and is what would build the work of art.

Saussure and Jakobson lead the Structuralistic thought and it would be applied to social understanding. The full significance of any entity cannot be perceived unless and until it is integrated into the structure of which it forms a part (Hawkes, p. 11) with this statement ‘any activity, from the actions of a narrative […] takes place within a system of differences and has meaning that emanates from nature or the divine' (Childers & Hentzi, p. 286)

Radically opposed to this movement and probably responding to the effects of the new political and social vision after World War Two the Post-Structuralism will claim for the freedom of the words, seeing the language as an entity that changes and absorbs and shares its meaning.

As it can be observed, the point of view of the critic (who is a canonist per se) is completely associated with its time falling again in a more professional but very punctual use. Yet it seems that the time for those abstract theories that in fact are related to the actual practices of reading and writing has gone. In terms of Pedagogical practice the ‘ emphasis is on what can be done with each theory rather than on what it is. There is also an insistence on a flexible plurality of approach: identifying models and methods (of criticism) appropriate to specific tasks and texts-not arbitrarily imposing one on all'

But in terms of a literary approach, maybe the answer is the Metacriticism that review and criticise several critical views of the same work. The whole conjunct of that metacritic use to be done from different perspectives, though depending on whom or in quality of what the critic is acting.

To conclude I would like to include ‘Hamlet' on this paper just because of its notorious role in the history of literature to quote this statement. In its Norton Critical Edition (Cyrus Hoy Ed. University of Rochester; 1991) we can see an excellent example of how the metacriticism works. With many different essays in Criticism from Samuel Johnson and Coleridge to Ernest Jones or Rebecca West there are magnificent critic essays on Shakespeare masterpiece that compose a fantastic view of different theories but it is with T. S Eliot that the Metacriticism arrive.

Eliot will criticise the approaching of Goethe and Coleridge because both criticised Hamlet from the point of view of their own literary work. ‘ The kind of criticism that Goethe and Coleridge produced, in writing of Hamlet, is the most misleading kind possible […] both make their critical aberrations the more plausible by the substitution –of their own Hamlet Shakespeare's- with their creative gift effects' . (p.180). About the question that most critics arose of the originality of Hamlet, again Eliot will remind non-writer critics how a work of art grows up. How they nourish from other works together with an idea that do not need to be original. ‘Mr Robertson points out how critics have failed in their interpretation of Hamlet by ignoring what ought to be very obvious: that Hamlet is a stratification, that it represents the

Structuralism and Semiotics; http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm#poststruct

The English Studies Book. Routledge Ed; 2002. 1.5.12 Critical Theory into Cultural Practice p.47.

Structuralism and Semiotics; http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm#poststruct

The English Studies Book. Routledge Ed; 2002. 1.5.12 Critical Theory into Cultural Practice p.47

efforts of a series of men, each making what he could out of the work of his predecessors' (p.181)

To sum up I tried to condense in a few lines the development of literary criticism from its natural origins to its complicated modern applications arriving to the conclusion that this field of study and interpreting the literary works (and in general any work of art) is as controversial as its many confronting theories and also as amazing as the challenge of facing a poem, with a supposed blank and objective perspective but in fact absolutely influenced by our scholastic, social and emotional scenario.