Literary Theory: A Complete Introduction (Complete Introductions)

Description

Literary theory has now become integral to how we produce literary criticism. When critics write about a text, they no longer think just about the biographical or historical contexts of the work, but also about the different approaches that literary theory offers. By making use of these, they create new interpretations of the text that would not otherwise be possible. In your own reading and writing, literary theory fosters new avenues into the text. It allows you to make informed comments about the language and form of literature, but also about the core themes - concepts such as gender, sexuality, the self, race, and class - which a text might explore. Literary theory gives you an almost limitless number of texts to work into your own response, ensuring that your interpretation is truly original. This is why, although literary theory can initially appear alienating and difficult, it is something to get really excited about. Imagine you are standing in the centre of a circular room, with a whole set of doors laid out around you. Each doorway opens on to a new and illuminating field of knowledge that can change how you think about what you have read: perhaps in just a small way, but also perhaps dramatically and irrevocably. You can open one door, or many of them. The choice is yours. Put the knowledge you gain together with your own interpretation, however, and you have a unique and potentially fascinating response. Each chapter in Literary Theory: A Complete Introduction covers a key school of thought, progressing to a point at which you'll have a full understanding of the range of responses and approaches available for textual interpretation. As well as focusing on such core areas as Marxism, Modernism, Postmodernism, Structuralism and Poststructuralism, this introduction brings in recent developments such as Eco and Ethical Criticism and Humanisms. Title Contents Introduction How to use this book 1 Aestheticism The Pre-Raphaelites Art for art’s sake Symbolism Decadence New aestheticism 2 Formalism Practical criticism The new criticism Continental formalism Defamiliarization Formalism today 3 Reader response theory Is there a text on this paper? Rejecting formalism Unacceptable readings? ‘Readerly’ and ‘writerly’ Reader response theory today 4 Marxism and post-Marxism Base and superstructure Ideologies The Frankfurt School Post-Marxism 5 Structuralism The elements of language The sign ‘The Death of the Author’ Denotations and connotations Metaphor and metonymy Narratology 6 Psychoanalytic criticism Identity and the self Jungian psychoanalysis Lacanian psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis and literature 7 Modernism and surrealism High modernism Surrealism When was/is modernism? 8 Existentialism Life and truth Nietzsche’s Übermensch Authenticity and bad faith Absurdism 9 Poststructuralism Language and reality Deconstruction Poststructuralist politics? The heterotopia Intertextuality Gilles Deleuze 10 Postmodernism Postmodern culture The simalcrum Postmodern politics Postmodern literature Historiographic metafiction Post-postmodernism 11 Feminist theory First-wave feminism Second-wave feminism The rise of feminist literary theory French feminist theory Feminisms Third-wave feminism and beyond 12 Queer theory Dancing to your own tune Queer Compulsory heterosexuality Gender performativity Undoing gender Queering literature 13 Postcolonial criticism The Empire writes back Postcolonial spaces Postcolonial forms Criticism of postcolonial theory 14 Cultural studies What is culture? Critiquing mass culture Interdisciplinarity Cultural identities 15 Historicisms and materialisms Historicisms Cultural materialism New materialism Decentring the human Ergodic literature 16 Humanisms Being human Humanist ethics Humanism and literature 17 Ethical criticism The ethical text and morality The ethical turn Three ethical moments Transversal poetics 18 Genre theory The influence of Aristotle The Chicago School The Rhetoric of Fiction The role of the reader ‘Popular’ literatures 19 Ecocriticism Studying the earth The death of nature Critiquing the human Conclusion References Answers Copyright