Literary Criticism : An Introduction to Theory and Practice

by Bressler, Charles E.

• ISBN13: 9780131534483
• ISBN10: 0131534483
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-01-01
• Publisher: Pearson College Div

Summary

The fourth edition of the bestselling Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice showcases various schools of twentieth century criticism in historical and philosophical contexts.

Table of Contents

Foreword	viii
To the Reader	xi
1 Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature	1	(19)
Listening to a Conversation	1	(1)
Eavesdropping on a Literature Classroom	2	(2)
Can a Text Have More Than One Interpretation?	4	(1)
How to Become a Literary Critic	5	(1)
What Is Literary Criticism?	6	(1)
What Is Literary Theory?	7	(2)
Making Meaning from Text	9	(1)
The Reading Process and Literary Theory	10	(2)
What Is Literature?	12	(2)
Literary Theory and the Definition of Literature	14	(1)
The Function of Literature and Literary Theory	15	(2)
Beginning the Formal Study of Literary Theory	17	(1)
Further Reading	18	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	19	(1)
2 A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism	20	(30)
Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.E.)	21	(2)
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.)	23	(2)
Horace (65-8 B.C.E.)	25	(1)
Longinus (First Century C.E.)	26	(1)
Plotinus (204-270 C.E.)	27	(1)
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)	28	(1)
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)	29	(1)
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)	30	(1)
John Dryden (1631-1700)	31	(1)
Joseph Addison (1672-1719)	32	(2)
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)	34	(1)
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)	35	(2)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)	37	(1)
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893)	38	(2)
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)	40	(2)
Henry James (1843-1916)	42	(2)
Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975)	44	(3)
Modern Literary Criticism	47	(1)
Further Reading	48	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	49	(1)
3 Russian Formalism and New Criticism	50	(22)
Russian Formalism	50	(3)
Bridging the Gap Between Russian Formalism and New Criticism	53	(1)
Applying Russian Formalism to a Literary Text	53	(1)
New Criticism	54	(2)
Historical Development	56	(2)
Assumptions	58	(4)
Methodology	62	(3)
Questions for Analysis	65	(1)
Critiques and Responses	65	(1)
Further Reading	66	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	67	(1)
Sample Essay	67	(1)
Student Essay: Hilary S. Brautigam, Controlled Passion	68	(4)
4 Reader-Oriented Criticism	72	(24)
Historical Development	76	(4)
Assumptions	80	(2)
Methodology	82	(6)
Questions for Analysis	88	(1)
Critiques and Responses	89	(1)
Further Reading	90	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	91	(1)
Sample Essay	91	(1)
Student Essay: Ian J. Galloway, The Child Grandmother	92	(4)
5 Modernity and Postmodernism: Structuralism and Deconstruction	96	(46)
Modernity	96	(2)
Poststructuralism or Postmodernism	98	(3)
Modernity to Modernism	101	(1)
Historical Development of Structuralism	102	(7)
Assumptions of Structuralism	109	(2)
Methodologies of Structuralism	111	(5)
Deconstruction Theory: From Structuralism to Poststructuralism	116	(1)
Deconstruction: Historical Development	117	(3)
Deconstructions' Assumptions	120	(2)
Methodology	122	(4)
Deconstructive Suppositions for Textual Analysis	126	(3)
Questions for Analysis	129	(2)
Critiques and Responses	131	(2)
Further Reading	133	(1)
Structuralism	133	(1)
Deconstruction	134	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	134	(1)
Sample Essays	135	(1)
Student Essay I (Structuralist Approach): Matthew G. Hepler, A Disconnect of Appearance and Reality: The Binaries of "Rappaccini's Daughter"	136	(3)
Student Essay II (Deconstructive Approach): Danielle M. Bowers, Choosing Between Two Roads: Deconstructing Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"	139	(3)
6 Psychoanalytic Criticism	142	(25)
Historical Development	144	(11)
The Present State of Psychoanalytic Criticism	155	(1)
Assumptions	156	(1)
Methodologies	157	(3)
Questions for Analysis	160	(1)
Critiques and Responses	160	(1)
Further Reading	161	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	162	(1)
Sample Essay	162	(1)
Student Essay: Brandon W. Hawk, Anima and Reality in Poe's "Ligeia"	163	(4)
7 Feminism	167	(24)
Historical Development	171	(3)
Feminism in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's	174	(6)
Present-day Feminist Criticisms	180	(2)
Assumptions	182	(1)
Methodology	183	(1)
Questions for Analysis	184	(1)
Critiques and Responses	184	(2)
Further Reading	186	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	187	(1)
Sample Essay	188	(1)
Student Essay: Lori Huth, Throwing Off the Yoke: "Rip Van Winkle" and Women	188	(3)
8 Marxism	191	(21)
Historical Development	192	(8)
Marxist Theorists Today	200	(1)
Assumptions	201	(3)
Methodology	204	(1)
Questions for Analysis	205	(1)
Critiques and Responses	205	(1)
Further Reading	206	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	207	(1)
Sample Essay	208	(1)
Student Essay: Matthew S. Lasher, Heaven's Last Gleaming	208	(4)
9 Cultural Poetics or New Historicism	212	(21)
A New-Critical Lecture	212	(1)
Old Historicism	213	(1)
New Historicism	214	(1)
Historical Development	214	(4)
Cultural Materialism	218	(1)
New Historicism	218	(1)
Assumptions	219	(3)
What Cultural Poetics Rejects	222	(1)
What Cultural Poetics Does and Accepts	223	(1)
Methodology	223	(3)
Questions for Analysis	226	(1)
Critiques and Responses	226	(1)
Further Reading	227	(1)
Web Sites for Exploration	228	(1)
Sample Essay	229	(1)
Student Essay: Anna L. Kruse, Done Yesterday: A New Historicist Reading of Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est"	229	(4)
10 Cultural Studies: Postcolonialism, African-American Criticism, and Queer Theory	233	(98)
Postcolonialism: "The Empire Writes Back"	235	(9)
African-American Criticism	244	(8)
Queer Theory	252	(9)
Critiques and Responses	261	(2)
Further Reading	263	(2)
Web Sites for Exploration	265	(1)
Sample Essay	265	(1)
Student Essay: Benjamin K. Walker, The Empire Fights Back: Spectral Persecution and the Nightmare of Decolonization in Kipling's "At the End of the Passage"	266	(4)
Literary Selections	270	(1)
John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1816)	270	(1)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter" (From the Writings of Aubepine; 1844)	271	(22)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Young Goodman Brown"	293	(10)
Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"	303	(1)
Edgar Allan Poe, "Ligeia"	303	(12)
Wilfred Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est" (1920)	315	(1)
Rudyard Kipling, "At the End of the Passage"	316	(15)
Glossary	331	(37)
Index	368