Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice

by Bressler, Charles E.

• ISBN13: 9780130333971
• ISBN10: 0130333972
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-01-01
• Publisher: Pearson College Div

Summary

The fourth edition of the bestselling Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice showcases various schools of 20th century criticism in historical and philosophical contexts. New features include: - A new chapter on queer theory. - Every chapter has been revised with new introductions with appropriate new critical vocabulary, critical terms, further readings sections, and web sites. - New student essays - Structuralism and Deconstruction have been combined into one section to make the material clearer and more streamlined. - The addition of Plotinus, Giovanni Boccaccio, Joseph Addison, Percy Pysshe Shelley, and Mikhail Bakhtin. Pick a Penguin Program* We offer select Penguin Putnam titles at a substantial discount to your students when you request a special package of one or more Penguin titles with this text. Please contact your local Prentice Hall Sales Representative for more information.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
To the Reader	xii
Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature	1	(15)
Eavesdropping on a Literature Classroom	1	(2)
Can a Text Have More Than One Interpretation?	3	(1)
How to Become a Literary Critic	3	(1)
What Is Literary Criticism?	4	(2)
What Is Literary Theory?	6	(1)
Making Meaning from Text	7	(1)
The Reading Process and Literary Theory	8	(2)
What Is Literature?	10	(2)
Literary Theory and the Definition of Literature	12	(1)
The Function of Literature and Literary Theory	13	(1)
Beginning the Formal Study of Literary Theory	14	(1)
Further Reading	15	(1)
A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism	16	(21)
Introduction	16	(1)
Plato (ca. 427-347 B.C.)	16	(2)
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)	18	(3)
Horace (65-8 B.C.)	21	(1)
Longinus (First Century A.D.)	22	(1)
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)	23	(1)
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)	24	(1)
John Dryden (1631-1700)	24	(1)
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)	25	(1)
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)	26	(3)
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893)	29	(1)
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)	30	(2)
Henry James (1843-1916)	32	(2)
Modern Literary Criticism	34	(1)
Further Reading	35	(2)
New Criticism	37	(18)
Introduction	37	(2)
Historical Development	39	(3)
Assumptions	42	(3)
Methodology	45	(3)
Questions for Analysis	48	(1)
Sample Essay	48	(1)
Further Reading	49	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	49	(1)
Student Essay: Dale Schuurman, Keats's ``To Autumn'': Verses of Praise for a Malicious Season?	50	(5)
Reader-Response Criticism	55	(20)
Introduction	55	(2)
Historical Development	57	(4)
Assumptions	61	(2)
Methodology	63	(6)
Questions for Analysis	69	(1)
Sample Essay	70	(1)
Further Reading	70	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	71	(1)
Student Essay: Jennifer Douglas, ``Ethan Brand's'' Challenge to Me	72	(3)
Structuralism	75	(19)
Introduction	75	(1)
Historical Development	76	(6)
Assumptions	82	(2)
Methodologies	84	(5)
Questions for Analysis	89	(1)
Sample Essay	89	(1)
Further Reading	90	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	90	(1)
Student Essay: Conie Krause, Will the Real Walter Mitty Please Wake Up: A Structuralist's View of ``The Secret Life of Walter Mitty''	91	(3)
Deconstruction	94	(25)
Structuralism and Poststructuralism: Two Views of the World	94	(2)
Modernity	96	(2)
Poststructuralism or Postmodernism	98	(2)
Historical Development	100	(4)
Assumptions	104	(3)
Methodology	107	(6)
American Deconstructors	113	(1)
Questions for Analysis	114	(1)
Sample Essay	114	(1)
Further Reading	115	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	115	(1)
Student Essay: Jennifer Douglas, Deconstructing a ``Real'' House	116	(3)
Psychoanalytic Criticism	119	(23)
Introduction	119	(2)
Historical Development	121	(11)
Assumptions	132	(1)
Methodologies	133	(2)
Questions for Analysis	135	(1)
Sample Essay	136	(1)
Further Reading	136	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	137	(1)
Student Essay: David Johnson, A Psychoanalytic Approach to Poe's ``The City in the Sea''	137	(5)
Feminism	142	(19)
Introduction	142	(2)
Historical Development	144	(9)
Assumptions	153	(1)
Methodology	154	(2)
Questions for Analysis	156	(1)
Sample Essay	156	(1)
Further Reading	157	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	157	(1)
Student Essay: Lori Huth, Throwing Off the Yoke: ``Rip Van Winkle'' and Women	158	(3)
Marxism	161	(18)
Introduction	161	(1)
Historical Development	162	(8)
Assumptions	170	(2)
Methodology	172	(1)
Questions for Analysis	173	(1)
Sample Essay	174	(1)
Further Reading	174	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	175	(1)
Student Essay: Juanita Wolfe, Baking Bread for the Bourgeoisie	175	(4)
Cultural Poetics or New Historicism	179	(18)
Introduction	179	(2)
Historical Development	181	(4)
Assumptions	185	(3)
Methodology	188	(2)
Questions for Textual Analysis	190	(1)
Questions for Analysis	191	(1)
Sample Essay	191	(1)
Further Reading	191	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	192	(1)
Student Essay: Krista Adlhock, Hawthorne's Understanding of History in ``The Maypole of Merry Mount''	193	(4)
Cultural Studies	197	(17)
Introduction	197	(2)
Postcolonialism: ``The Empire Writes Back''	199	(1)
Historical Development of Postcolonialism	200	(2)
Assumptions of Postcolonialist Theory	202	(2)
Methodology	204	(1)
Questions for Analysis	205	(1)
Postcolonialism and African American Criticism	205	(3)
Gender Studies: New Directions in Feminism	208	(1)
Sample Essay	209	(1)
Further Reading	209	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	210	(1)
Student Essay: Wendy Rader, ``The Gentlemen of the Jungle'': Or Are They Beasts?	211	(3)
Literary Selections	214	(46)
``To Autumn''	214	(1)
John Keats
``Ethan Brand''	215	(13)
Nathaniel Hawthorne
``The Secret Life of Walter Mitty''	228	(4)
James Thurber
``The House on Mango Street''	232	(1)
Sandra Cisneros
``The City in the Sea''	233	(2)
Edgar Allan Poe
``Rip Van Winkle''	235	(13)
Washington Irving
``Marked with D.''	248	(1)
Tony Harrison
``The Maypole of Merry Mount''	248	(8)
Nathaniel Hawthorne
``The Gentlemen of the Jungle''	256	(4)
Jomo Kenyatta
Glossary	260	(29)
References	289	(23)
Credits	312	(2)
Index	314

Excerpts

To the Reader Like the first two editions, this new edition ofLiterary Criticismis designed as a supplemental text for introductory courses in both literature and literary criticism. In all three editions, the purpose of this text has always remained the same: to enable students to approach literature from a variety of practical and theoretical perspectives and to equip them with a theoretical and a practical understanding of how critics develop their interpretations. Its overall aim is to take the mystery out of working with and interpreting texts. Like the first and second editions, the third edition holds to several key premises. First, I assume that there is no such thing as an "innocent" reading of a text. Whether our responses to a text are emotional and spontaneous or well reasoned and highly structured, all of our interpretations are based on underlying factors that cause us to respond in a particular way. What elicits these responses, and how a reader makes sense out of a text, is what really matters. It is the domain of literary theory to question our initial and all our further responses, our beliefs, our values, our feelings, and our eventual, overall interpretation. To understand why we respond to a text in a certain way, we must first understand literary theory and criticism. Second, since our responses to any text have theoretical bases, I presume that all readers have a literary theory. Consciously or unconsciously, as readers we have developed a mind-set that fits or encompasses our expectations when reading any text. Somehow we all seem able to make sense of a text. The methods we use to frame our personal and public interpretations directly involve us in the process of literary criticism and theory and automatically make us practicing literary critics, whether we know it or not! My third assumption rests on the observation that each reader's literary theory and accompanying methodology is either conscious or unconscious, complete or incomplete, informed or ill-informed, eclectic or unified. Since an unconscious, incomplete, ill-informed, and eclectic literary theory more frequently than not leads to illogical, unsound, and haphazard interpretations, I believe that a well-defined, logical, and clearly articulated theory will enable readers to develop their own methods of interpretation, permitting readers, in fact, to order, clarify, and justify their appraisals of a text in a consistent and rational manner. Unfortunately, many readers cannot articulate their own literary theory and have little knowledge of the history and development of the ever-evolving principles of literary criticism. It is the goal of this book to introduce such students to literary theory and criticism, its historical development, and the various theoretical positions or schools of criticism that will enable them as readers to make conscious, informed, and intelligent choices about their own methods of interpretation. Like the first two editions, this new edition introduces students to the basic concerns of literary theory in Chapter 1, which now includes a more expansive definition ofliteratureitself. Chapter 2 places literary theory and criticism in historical perspective, starting with Plato and ending with modern-day theorists. Chapters 3 to 11 have all been revised, adding new terminology where appropriate. These chapters present the eleven major schools of criticism that have been developed in the twentieth century: New Criticism, Reader-Response Criticism, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Feminism, Marxism, Cultural Poetics or New Historicism, and Cultural Studies, with an expanded discussion of Postcolonialism, including African American and Gender Studies. To maintain consistency and for ease of study, each of these chapters is identically organized. We begin with a briefIntroductionfollowed by theHistorical Developmentof each school of