In this paper, the literary literacy of adults was categorized into 'reflective', 'critical', and 'practical', and their characteristics were identified. So far, the Korean language Education studies has been exploring the nature and meaning of modern literacy education on various levels. However, it is very rare to discuss the literary literacy of adults. In this paper, the type of adult literary literacy and its characteristics were explored, reflecting the problem of Korean language education dealt with by literary literacy at a level that has already been revised to the extent of simple 'literary competence'. Meanwhile, the discussion of literary literacy at Korean literary education field (especially adult lifelong education field) was mainly dealt with in the category of functional literacy. This paper was newly presented the critical paradigm as a method of approaching literary literacy. It was confirmed that critical paradigm could be a valid methodology in reflection of literary education or related literary competence in adult lifelong education, and it was associated that the perspective for the relationship between literary competence and literary literacy can be renewed in this paper.