The Complete Idiot's Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism
Author: Steven J. Venturino, PhD
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2013-03-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1615643273

From Plato to Freud to ecocriticism, the book illustrates dozens of stimulating-and sometimes notoriously complex-perspectives for approaching literature and film. The book offers authoritative, clear, and easy-to-follow explanations of theories that range from established classics to the controversies of current theory. Each chapter offers a conversational, step-by-step explanation of a single theory, critic, or issue, accompanied by concrete examples for applying the concepts and engaging suggestions for related literary readings. Following a section on the foundations of literary theory, the book is organized thematically, with an eye to the best way to develop a real, working understanding of the various theories. Cross-references are particularly important, since it's through the interaction of examples that readers most effectively advance from basic topics and arguments to some of the more specialized and complicated issues. Each chapter is designed to tell a complete story, yet also to reach out to other chapters for development and debate. Literary theorists are hardly unified in their views, and this book reflects the various traditions, agreements, influences, and squabbles that are a part of the field. Special features include hundreds of references to and quotations from novels, stories, plays, poems, movies, and other media. Online resources could also include video and music clips, as well as high-quality examples of visual art mentioned in the book. The book also includes periodic "running" references to selected key titles (such as Frankenstein) in order to illustrate the effect of different theories on a single work.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Critical Reading

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Critical Reading
Author: Amy Wall
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2005-05-03
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 144069642X

The essential guide to looking at literature with your own two eyes. What students know about Shakespeare, Orwell, Dickens, and Twain is primarily what their instructors tell them. Here’s a book that teaches the students how to move on to the next level—evaluate and read critically on their own, trust their own opinions, develop original ideas, analyze characters, and find a deeper appreciation for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and more. • Ideal companion for college students and accessible for the casual reader as well. • Covers fiction, poetry, narrative nonfiction, biographies and memoirs, essays and editorials, and newspapers, magazines, and journals. • Features examples from published writing. • Includes a reading list and a glossary of literary terms.

Literary Theory and Criticism: An Introduction

Literary Theory and Criticism: An Introduction
Author: Anne H. Stevens
Publisher: Broadview Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2015-06-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1770485619

Literary Theory and Criticism: An Introduction provides an accessible overview of major figures and movements in literary theory and criticism from antiquity to the twenty-first century. It is designed for students at the undergraduate level or for others needing a broad synthesis of the long history of literary theory. An introductory chapter provides an overview of some of the major issues within literary theory and criticism; further chapters survey theory and criticism in antiquity, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the nineteenth century. For twentieth- and twenty-first-century theory, the discussion is subdivided into separate chapters on formalist, historicist, political, and psychoanalytic approaches. The final chapter applies a variety of theoretical concepts and approaches to two famous works of literature: William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature

The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature
Author: Laurie E. Rozakis
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 500
Release: 1999
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780028633787

Looks at American authors from Washington Irving to John Updike and provides brief biographical sketches, excerpts and summaries of major works, and explanations of major literary movements

An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory

An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory
Author: Andrew Bennett
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2016-03-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317313127

Lively, original and highly readable, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory is the essential guide to literary studies. Starting at ‘The Beginning’ and concluding with ‘The End’, chapters range from the familiar, such as ‘Character’, ‘Narrative’ and ‘The Author’, to the more unusual, such as ‘Secrets’, ‘Pleasure’ and ‘Ghosts’. Now in its fifth edition, Bennett and Royle’s classic textbook successfully illuminates complex ideas by engaging directly with literary works, so that a reading of Jane Eyre opens up ways of thinking about racial difference, for example, while Chaucer, Raymond Chandler and Monty Python are all invoked in a discussion of literature and laughter. The fifth edition has been revised throughout and includes four new chapters – ‘Feelings’, ‘Wounds’, ‘Body’ and ‘Love’ – to incorporate exciting recent developments in literary studies. In addition to further reading sections at the end of each chapter, the book contains a comprehensive bibliography and a glossary of key literary terms. A breath of fresh air in a field that can often seem dry and dauntingly theoretical, this book will open the reader’s eyes to the exhilarating possibilities of reading and studying literature.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Memoir

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Memoir
Author: Victoria Costello
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2011-12-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1101559179

Helps readers write memoirs, personal essays, and life stories of every length and type.

A Complete Guide to Literary Analysis and Theory

A Complete Guide to Literary Analysis and Theory
Author: Michael Ryan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2022-11-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1000783316

A Complete Guide to Literary Analysis and Theory offers an accessible introduction to all the current approaches to literary analysis. Ranging from stylistics and historicism to post-humanism and new materialism, it also includes chapters on media studies and screen studies. The Guide is designed for use in introductory literature courses and as a primer in theory courses. Each chapter summarizes the main ideas of each approach to the study of literature in clear prose, providing lucid introductions to the practice of each school, and conducts readings using classic and modern works of literature from around the world. The book draws on examples from a wide range of works from classics such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Shakespeare's King Lear to contemporary works such as Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb." This wide-ranging introduction is ideal for students encountering literary study for the first time, as well as more advanced students who need a concise summary of critical methods. It strives to make complex ideas simple and provides readings that undergraduates should be able to understand and enjoy as well as training them to conduct analyses of their own.

Literary Theory

Literary Theory
Author: Mary Klages
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2017
Genre: Criticism
ISBN: 9781427592743