Social and historical criticism is a critical method to observe, analyze and evaluate literary phenomena from the perspective of social history. It pays attention to the relationship between literary works and social life, the writer's ideological tendency and the social role of literary works. Social and historical criticism is the oldest and most influential method system among the types of criticism methods today, and it is also the most familiar, accustomed or abused criticism method. At the same time, it is a developing method system that still has vitality.

Social and historical criticism always makes a value judgment on the object of comment, thus forming a certain judgment scale. Generally speaking, not all critical models have clear standards, but social and historical criticism attaches great importance to making value judgments on literary works. Its evaluation criteria are mainly authenticity, tendency and social effect.