When you write a literary argument, you do more than just respond to, explicate, or analyze a work of literature. When you develop a literary argument, you take a position about a literary work (or works), support that position with evidence, and refute possible opposing arguments. You might, for example, take the position that a familiar interpretation of a well-known work is limited in some way, that a work’s impact today is different from its impact when it was written, or that two apparently very different works have some significant similarities.

It is important to understand that not every essay about literature is a literary argument. For example, you might use a discussion of Tillie Olsen’s short story “I Stand Here Ironing,” with its sympathetic portrait of a young mother during the Great Depression, to support an argument in favor of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s expansion of social welfare programs. Alternatively, you might use Martín Espada’s poem “Why I Went to College” to support your own decision to continue your education. However, writing a literary argument involves much more than discussing a literary work in order to support a particular position or referring to a character to shed light on your own intellectual development or to explain a choice you made. A literary argument takes a stand about a work (or works) of literature.