Practical Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism

by Booker, Keith M.

• ISBN13: 9780801317651
• ISBN10: 0801317657
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-12-07
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

A uniquely accessible guide to a difficult subject, A Practical Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism introduces students to the major trends in contemporary literary theory. Offering the breadth of information of a handbook and the examples of an anthology, it provides an invaluable alternative to the standard collections and shows students how literary theory really unfolds.

Table of Contents

I. INTRODUCTION TO THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE.

1. The New Criticism.

2. Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism.

3. Reader-Response Literary Criticism.

4. Deconstructive Literary Criticism.

5. Marxist Literary Criticism.

6. Feminist Literary Criticism.

7. Bakhtinian Literary Criticism.

8. Foucauldian Literary Criticism.

9. New Historicist Literary Criticism.

10. Multicultural Literary Criticism.

II. INTRODUCTION TO THE APPLICATION OF LITERARY THEORY.

11. Approaches to The Tempest, by William Shakespeare.

12. Approaches to Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad.

13. Approaches to Devil on the Cross, by Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

14. Approaches to The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood.

15. Approaches to Beloved, by Toni Morrison.

III. INTRODUCTION TO CRITICISM IN PRACTICE.

16. Essays on Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Learning to Curse: Aspects of Linguistic Colonialism in the Sixteenth Century, Stephen Greenblatt.

Nymphs and Reapers Heavily Vanish: The Discursive Con-Texts of The Tempest, Francis Barker and Peter Hulme.

17. Essays on Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Heart of Darkness: Geography as Apocalypse, Patrick Parrinder.

`Rebarbarizing Civilization': Conrad's African Fiction and Spencerian Sociology, Brian W. Shaffer.

18. Essays on Ngugi's Devil on the Cross.

The Strength of the Rhetoric of Oral Tradition in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Devil on the Cross, Sam A. Adewoye.

Language, Oral Tradition, and Social Vision in Ngugi's Devil on the Cross, Bayo Ogunjimi.

19. Essays on Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

The World as It Will Be? Stephanie Barbé Hammer.

Female Satire and the Technology of Power in The Handmaid's Tale.

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and the Dystopian Tradition, Amin Malak.

20. Essays on Morrison's Beloved.

Giving Body to the Word: The Maternal Symbolic in Toni Morrison's Beloved, Jean Wyatt.

Daughters Signifyin(g) History: The Example of Toni Morrison's Beloved, Ashraf H. A. Rushdy.

Glossary.

Index.