Question

What is a literary analysis ?

Answer 1

Literary analysis focuses on how plot/structure, character, setting, and many other techniques are used by the author to create meaning.

Answer 2

A literary analysis refers to a form of essay that carefully evaluates  and examines a specific work of literature or an aspect of a work of literature giving an opinion about it. To do so, the literary analysis needs to break down the analized work in it's different elements, then examine them having, as a result, a deeper understanding of the work as a whole.

It's written in third person and it needs to clearly give a thesis statement, that is the author has to be very clear on hte position it makes. The analysis will be different depending of the work of literature analyzed. A poem will probaly be related to the figurative language, for example.