Literary Theory: An IntroductionThis classic work is designed to cover all of the major movements in literary studies during this century. Noted for its clear, engaging style and unpretentious treatment, Literary Theory has become the introduction of choice for anyone interested in learning about the world of contemporary literary thought. The second edition contains a major new survey chapter that addresses developments in cultural theory since the book's original publication in 1983, including feminist theory, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. |
Contents
What is Literature? | 1 |
1 The Rise of English | 15 |
2 Phenomenology Hermeneutics Reception Theory | 47 |
3 Structuralism and Semiotics | 79 |
4 PostStructuralism | 110 |
5 Psychoanalysis | 131 |
Political Criticism | 169 |
Afterword | 190 |
Notes | 209 |
| 217 | |
| 224 | |
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Common terms and phrases
actually aesthetic ambiguity analysis assumptions Barthes become belief child codes complex concrete consciousness context cultural D. H. Lawrence deconstruction Derrida discourse English English Studies existence experience F. R. Leavis fact father feminist fiction Formalists Freud Heidegger hermeneutical Hirsch human subject Husserl I. A. Richards identity ideology imagine individual interpretation kind Lacan language Leavis less linguistic literary criticism literary text literary theory literature London Marxist material matter meaning method mind modern Morel myth narrative novel object Oedipus complex organic particular perhaps phenomenology philosophy poem poetic poetry political possible post-structuralism postmodernism practical problems psychoanalysis question radical reader reading reality reason reception theory relations repression Romantic Saussure seemed seen semiotic sense sexual signifier simply social society speak structuralism structuralist symbolic T. S. Eliot thing thought tion tradition transformed truth uncon unconscious values whole women words writing
Popular passages
Page 222 - Elaine Showalter, A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).
Page 219 - Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980).