A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature

by Guerin, Wilfred L.; Labor, Earle; Morgan, Lee; Reesman, Jeanne C.; Willingham, John R.

• ISBN13: 9780195160178
• ISBN10: 0195160177
• Edition: 5th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-12-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Now in its fifth edition, A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature has become both a standard introduction to the close reading of literature and an invaluable resource for English graduate students. It offers students and other readers a variety of ways to interpret a piece ofliterature, ranging from historical/biographical and moral/philosophical approaches through the formalist, the psychological, the mythic and archetypal, and into such contemporary perspectives as feminist criticism and cultural studies. The book applies these diverse approaches to the same sixclassic works--"To His Coy Mistress," Hamlet, Huckleberry Finn, "Young Goodman Brown," "Everyday Use," and, new to this edition, Frankenstein--showing students how various methods offer different insights and enriching their response to and understanding of the individual works. The fifth edition isenhanced by the addition of Frankenstein, a complex work that lends itself to multiple levels of interpretation and is familiar in both its cinematic and literary forms. The coverage of Frankenstein incorporates material on popular culture--discussions of various fiction, stage, film, and televisionappearances of the work--as well as several photographs. This edition also features organizational and content changes that bring the volume up-to-date with contemporary literary criticism. Offering a valuable combination of theory and practice, A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, FifthEdition, is ideal for courses in literary criticism or theory and can also be used in introduction to literature courses.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	ix
Preface	x
Getting Started: The Precritical Response	1	(14)
Setting	7	(1)
Plot	8	(1)
Character	8	(1)
Structure	9	(1)
Style	10	(1)
Atmosphere	11	(2)
Theme	13	(2)
First Things First: Textual Scholarship, Genres, and Source Study	15	(36)
First, a Note on Traditional Approaches	15	(2)
Three Foundational Questions	17	(34)
Textual Scholarship: Do We Have an Accurate Version of What We Are Studying?	17	(1)
General Observations	17	(3)
Text Study in Practice	20	(9)
Matters of Genre: What Are We Dealing With?	29	(1)
An Overview of Genre	29	(4)
Genre Characteristics in Practice	33	(13)
Source Study: Did Earlier Writings Help This Work Come into Being?	46	(5)
Historical and Biographical Approaches	51	(26)
General Observations	51	(3)
Historical and Biographical Approaches in Practice	54	(23)
``To His Coy Mistress''	54	(3)
Hamlet	57	(4)
Huckleberry Finn	61	(5)
``Young Goodman Brown''	66	(3)
``Everyday Use''	69	(4)
Frankenstein	73	(4)
Moral and Philosophical Approaches	77	(13)
General Observations	77	(2)
Moral and Philosophical Approaches in Practice	79	(11)
``To His Coy Mistress''	79	(1)
Hamlet	80	(1)
Huckleberry Finn	81	(1)
``Young Goodman Brown''	82	(2)
``Everyday Use''	84	(3)
Frankenstein	87	(3)
The Formalist Approach	90	(62)
Reading a Poem: An Introduction to the Formalist Approach	90	(3)
The Process of Formalist Analysis: Making the Close Reader	93	(3)
A Brief History of Formalist Criticism	96	(6)
The Course of a Half Century	96	(1)
Backgrounds of Formalist Theory	97	(3)
The New Criticism	100	(2)
Constants of the Formalist Approach: Some Key Concepts, Terms, and Devices	102	(9)
Form and Organic Form	102	(3)
Texture, Image, Symbol	105	(1)
Fallacies	106	(1)
Point of View	107	(2)
The Speaker's Voice	109	(1)
Tension, Irony, Paradox	110	(1)
The Formalist Approach in Practice	111	(38)
Word, Image, and Theme: Space-Time Metaphors in ``To His Coy Mistress''	111	(5)
The Dark, the Light, and the Pink: Ambiguity as Form in ``Young Goodman Brown''	116	(2)
Virtues and Vices	118	(2)
Symbol or Allegory?	120	(1)
Loss upon Loss	121	(2)
Romance and Reality, Land and River: The Journey as Repetitive Form in Huckleberry Finn	123	(6)
Dialectic as Form: The Trap Metaphor in Hamlet	129	(1)
The Trap Imagery	129	(1)
The Cosmological Trap	130	(2)
``Seeming'' and ``Being''	132	(4)
``Seeing'' and ``Knowing''	136	(1)
Irony and Narrative Voice: A Formalist Approach to ``Everyday Use''	137	(4)
Frankenstein: A Formalist Reading, with an Emphasis on Exponents	141	(8)
Limitations of the Formalist Approach	149	(3)
The Psychological Approach: Freud	152	(30)
Aims and Principles	152	(9)
Abuses and Misunderstandings of the Psychological Approach	153	(1)
Freud's Theories	154	(7)
The Psychological Approach in Practice	161	(19)
Hamlet: The Oedipus Complex	161	(3)
Rebellion Against the Father in Huckleberry Finn	164	(4)
Prometheus Manque: The Monster Unbound	168	(1)
``Young Goodman Brown'': Is Versus Superego	169	(3)
Death Wish in Poe's Fiction	172	(1)
Love and Death in Blake's ``Sick Rose''	173	(1)
Sexual Imagery in ``To His Coy Mistress''	174	(3)
Morality over the Pleasure Principle in ``Everyday Use''	177	(3)
Other Possibilities and Limitations of the Psychological Approach	180	(2)
Mythological and Archetypal Approaches	182	(40)
Definitions and Misconceptions	182	(2)
Some Examples of Archetypes	184	(7)
Images	185	(4)
Archetypal Motifs or Patterns	189	(1)
Archetypes as Genres	190	(1)
Myth Criticism in Practice	191	(27)
Anthropology and Its Uses	192	(3)
The Sacrificial Hero: Hamlet	195	(4)
Archetypes of Time and Immortality: ``To His Coy Mistress''	199	(2)
Jungian Psychology and Its Archetypal Insights	201	(3)
Some Special Archetypes: Shadow, Persona, and Anima	204	(3)
``Young Goodman Brown'': A Failure of Individuation	207	(1)
Creature or Creator: Who Is the Real Monster in Frankenstein?	208	(2)
Syntheses of Jung and Anthropology	210	(1)
Myth Criticism and the American Dream: Huckleberry Finn as the American Adam	211	(5)
``Everyday Use'': The Great [Grand]Mother	216	(2)
Limitations of Myth Criticism	218	(4)
Feminisms and Gender Studies	222	(53)
Feminisms and Feminist Literary Criticism: Definitions	222	(2)
Woman: Created or Constructed?	224	(12)
Feminism and Psychoanalysis	227	(4)
Multicultural Feminisms	231	(3)
Marxist Feminism	234	(1)
Feminist Film Studies	234	(2)
Gender Studies	236	(4)
Feminisms in Practice	240	(28)
The Marble Vault: The Mistress in ``To His Coy Mistress''	240	(2)
Frailty, Thy Name Is Hamlet: Hamlet and Women	242	(7)
``The Workshop of Filthy Creation'': Men and Women in Frankenstein	249	(1)
Mary and Percy, Author and Editor	250	(3)
Masculinity and Femininity in the Frankenstein Family	253	(2)
``I Am Thy Creature . . .''	255	(2)
Men, Women, and the Loss of Faith in ``Young Goodman Brown''	257	(2)
Women and ``Sivilization'' in Huckleberry Finn	259	(5)
``In Real Life'': Recovering the Feminine Past in ``Everyday Use''	264	(4)
The Future of Feminist Literary Studies and Gender Studies: Some Problems and Limitations	268	(7)
Cultural Studies	275	(75)
What Is (or Are) ``Cultural Studies''?	275	(5)
Five Types of Cultural Studies	280	(25)
British Cultural Materialism	280	(2)
New Historicism	282	(5)
American Multiculturalism	287	(2)
African American Writers	289	(3)
Latina/o Writers	292	(3)
American Indian Literatures	295	(2)
Asian American Writers	297	(3)
Postmodernism and Popular Culture	300	(1)
Postmodernism	300	(2)
Popular Culture	302	(1)
Postcolonial Studies	303	(2)
Cultural Studies in Practice	305	(37)
Two Characters in Hamlet: Marginalization with a Vengeance	305	(6)
``To His Coy Mistress'': Implied Culture Versus Historical Fact	311	(3)
From Paradise Lost to Frank-N-Furter: The Creature Lives!	314	(1)
Revolutionary Births	314	(3)
The Frankenpheme in Popular Culture: Fiction, Drama, Film, Television	317	(8)
``The Lore of Fiends'': Hawthorne and His Market	325	(5)
``Telling the Truth, Mainly'': Tricksterism in Huckleberry Finn	330	(7)
Cultures in Conflict: A Story Looks at Cultural Change	337	(5)
Limitations of Cultural Studies	342	(8)
The Play of Meaning(s): Reader-Response Criticism, Dialogics, and Structuralism and Poststructuralism, Including Deconstruction	350	(31)
Reader-Response Criticism	350	(12)
Dialogics	362	(6)
Structuralism and Postructuralism, Including Deconstruction	368	(13)
Structuralism: Context and Definition	368	(1)
The Linguistic Model	369	(1)
Russian Formalism: Extending Saussure	370	(2)
Structuralism, Levi-Strauss, and Semiotics	372	(1)
French Structuralism: Codes and Decoding	373	(3)
British and American Interpreters	376	(1)
Poststructuralism: Deconstruction	377	(4)
Epilogue	381	(4)
Appendix A ``To His Coy Mistress''	385	(2)
Andrew Marvell
Appendix B ``Young Goodman Brown''	387	(14)
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Appendix C ``Everyday Use: for your grandmama''	401	(10)
Alice Walker
Index	411