Norman N. Holland has made major contributions to two areas of criticism: reader response and psychoanalytic interpretation. Having helped to demonstrate the vital role of the reader in creating the "meaning" of a text, he was also a pioneer in developing a detailed psychoanalytic approach to literary criticism in the United States during the late 1960s and in encouraging interest in such interpretation at a time when New Criticism prevailed. His approach, especially since the publication of The Dynamics of Literary Response in 1968, is more methodical and detailed than that of his American predecessor in this area, Simon O. Lesser, and more wide-ranging in his use of literature and thorough in his methodological attempts than that of Ernest Kris, his major psychoanalytic predecessor in this country.

The son of Norman Norwood Holland, a lawyer, and Harriette Breder Holland, Norman Norwood Holland was born in New York City on...