The Blackwell Guide to Literary Theory

This student-friendly text introduces students to the history and scope of literary theory, as well as showing them how to perform literary analysis.

• Designed to be used alongside primary theoretical texts as an introduction to theory or alongside literary texts as a model for performing literary analysis.
• Presents a series of exemplary readings of particular literary texts such as Jane Eyre, Heart of Darkness, Ulysses, To the Lighthouse and Midnight's Children.
• Provides a brief history of the rise of literary theory in the twentieth century, in order that students understand the historical contexts for different theories.
• Presents an alphabetically organized series of entries on key figures and publications, from Adorno to Žižek.
• Features descriptions of the major movements in literary theory, from critical theory through to postcolonial theory.

More than eighty years ago, the English literary critic, I. A. Richards, spoke of a “chaos of critical theories,” an assessment that would not be wide of the mark in the early years of the twenty-first century. This innovative guidebook introduces readers to the sometimes forbiddingly arcane world of literary theory, focusing on its fundamental concepts, and the most prominent and influential theoretical figures and movements.

The Blackwell Guide to Literary Theory:

• Explores the rise of literary theory from the late nineteenth century to the dawning of the twenty-first
  
• Outlines the major movements of literary theory, among them Deconstruction, Marxist theory, New Historicism, and Reader-Response theory
  
• Includes alphabetically organized biographies of key figures, from Adorno to Žižek
  
• Offers a number of exemplary theoretical readings of literary texts, including Jane Eyre, Heart of Darkness, Ulysses, To the Lighthouse, and Midnight's Children
  
• Features an in-depth glossary of complex theoretical terms, and useful suggestions for further reading.

Gregory Castle is Professor of English Literature at Arizona State University. His previous books include Modernism and the Celtic Revival (2001), Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2001), and Reading the Modernist Bildungsroman (2006).