Four Main Types of Literary Essay

You will be asked to write essays in most literature classes (not forgetting exams). Writing essay is a form method to express your understanding of the prescribed text and there are four common types of literary essays that you might explore.

(Content is slightly edited and simplified for easier understanding from: http://www.uvm.edu/wid/writingcenter/tutortips/engstypes.html#top)

1. Comparative/Synergistic

• A comparative essay is one in which you are called on to draw out similarities (sometimes also contrasts) between two or more elements. Most often, this will be between texts that have been covered in class, but it could also be between authors, genres, literary periods, or even between specific passages or characters in the same text.
• The goal here is to make connections and draw conclusions based on your comparisons (i.e. you must have a thesis about whatever you are comparing that is based on looking at them together.
• It is not enough to just compare and simply describe the similarities (and/or differences)—your thesis is what really matters. That argument will be the product of your comparison and will answer the broader question of “why is it important that these texts (authors, periods) be read together/studied closely against one another?” What can we learn from these similarities or differences? How do they help us understand the text(s) more fully?
• Your particular assignment might be open to you (i.e. you can choose to compare any element of the text and craft an argument around that comparison), or  compare/contrast very specific elements (the argument around those elements is still up to you to craft).
• Note that this assignment directly cautions against straight comparing or contrasting (i.e. simply figuring out the similarities/differences and stopping there). It asks for you to demonstrate dialogue of some sort between texts—i.e. using two texts to craft an argument that is only possible if we read them together (implying that there are things about each that are inherently similar or different and that this has important meaning, which you will argue with the thesis you craft). Your goal is to create a synergy between the texts, leading to an argument about how they work together.

2. Historical/Contextual

• An analysis that focuses on the context of the text, or that views the text within its larger historical or socio-cultural framework will often call not only for close reading of the text, but it may also require some additional research that will be used to help craft and support your argument 
• The context is not the primary focus, but rather how the context affects your reading of the text and how the text is affected by its context.
• Remember that the key here is to use your research on the historical and social context of the text to describe on how the text and its context are related. This is not a history paper. 

3. Theoretical

• A paper geared towards explicitly learning and/or practicing literary theory could take many forms: applying a particular theoretical lens to a text, comparing and contrasting two different theories, an intense study of one particular theory, and so on.
• This kind of paper is designed to give you practice at studying texts using different theoretical lenses.

4. Applied

• You will be asked to use a text in a somewhat less formal kind of analysis (though no less critical). This could be called a kind of applied essay and might ask you to use a text to explore certain kinds of issues and your own, personal relation to them.
• An example of this kind of essay might ask you to explore issues of race or gender, identity, and your own experiences by using the text(s) read in class. Maybe it asks you to analyze a current event that echoes some of the important concepts brought up by a particular text that you have read in class.
• Depending on the assignment, the applied essay could also be any of the kinds of essays described above.
• The goal of the assignment is still to engage with and analyze the text as well as demonstrate an understanding of the text in light of the themes of the class.

Read more at:
http://www.uvm.edu/wid/writingcenter/tutortips/engstypes.html