A Guide to English: Criticism & Theory

"This is the first comprehensive multi-volume encyclopedia of literary and cultural theory. Arranged in three volumes covering Literary Theory from 1900 to 1966, Literary Theory from 1966 to the present, and Cultural Theory, this encyclopedia provides accessible entries on the important concepts, theorists and trends in post-1900 literary and cultural theory. With explanations of complex terms and important theoretical concepts, and summaries of the work and ideas of key figures, it is a highly informative reference work for a multi-disciplinary readership." - Publisher description

"The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory is firmly established as a key work of reference in the complex and varied field of literary criticism. Now in its fifth edition, it remains the most comprehensive and accessible work of its kind, and is invaluable for students, teachers and general readers alike. It gives definitions of technical terms (hamartia, iamb, zeugma) and critical jargon (aporia, binary opposition, intertextuality). It explores literary movements (neoclassism, romanticism, vorticism) and schools of literary theory. It covers genres (elegy, fabliau, pastoral) and literary forms (haiku, ottava rima, sonnet)." - Publisher description

"The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism has become the indispensable resource for scholars and students of literary theory and discourse. The long-awaited second edition includes 48 new entries and subentries and has been revised throughout, taking account of ten years of rapidly changing scholarship. While concentrating on the explosion of contemporary critical and theoretical works, the Guide presents a comprehensive historical survey of ideas and individuals ranging from Plato and Aristotle to twentieth-century scholars. It includes more than 240 alphabetically arranged entries on critics and theorists, critical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods. It also examines developments in other disciplines which have shaped literary theory and criticism. An international, encyclopedic guide to the field's most important figures, schools, and movements, the new edition reflects the state of literary theory and criticism." - Publisher description

The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism provides a comprehensive historical account of Western literary criticism from classical antiquity to the present day. The history will comprise nine volumes and deal with literary theory and critical practice. It is intended as an authoritative work of reference and exposition, much more than a mere chronicle of facts. While remaining broadly non-partisan, it addresses, where appropriate, controversial issues of current critical debate without evasion or pretence of neutrality. Nevertheless, it will maintain throughout a scrupulous concern for factual accuracy and a due representation of differing points of view.

"Literary Criticism offers a concise overview of literary studies in the English-speaking world from the early twentieth century to the present. Joseph North steps back from the usual tangle of figures, schools, and movements in order to analyze the intellectual paradigms that underpinned them. The result is a radically new account of the discipline's development, together with a trenchant argument about where its political future lies. People in today's literature departments often assume that their work is politically progressive, especially when compared with the work of early- and mid-twentieth-century critics. North's view is less cheering. For when understood in relation to the longer arc of the discipline, the current historicist and contextualist mode in literary studies represents a step to the Right. Since the global turn to neoliberalism in the late 1970s, all the major movements within literary studies have been diagnostic rather than interventionist in character: scholars have developed sophisticated techniques for analyzing culture, but they have retreated from systematic attempts to transform it. In this respect, the political potential of current literary scholarship compares poorly with that of earlier critical modes, which, for all their faults, at least had a programmatic commitment to cultural change. Yet neoliberalism is now in crisis--a crisis that presents opportunities as well as dangers. North argues that the creation of a genuinely interventionist criticism is one of the central tasks facing those on the Left of the discipline today."-- Provided by publisher.

"This text has taken its place as the definitive treatment of the most distinguished age of American literature. Centering the discussion around five literary giants of the mid-nineteenth century-Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman. Matthiessen elucidates their conceptions of the nature and function of literature, and the extent to which these were realized in their writings." - from the publisher

"Extraordinary Bodies is a cornerstone text of disability studies, establishing the field upon its publication in 1997. Framing disability as a minority discourse rather than a medical one, the book added depth to oppressive narratives and revealed novel, liberatory ones. Through her incisive readings of such texts as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Rebecca Harding Davis's Life in the Iron Mills, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson exposed the social forces driving representations of disability. She encouraged new ways of looking at texts and their depiction of the body and stretched the limits of what counted as a text, considering freak shows and other pop culture artifacts as reflections of community rites and fears. Garland-Thomson also elevated the status of African-American novels by Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde. Extraordinary Bodies laid the groundwork for an appreciation of disability culture and an inclusive new approach to the study of social marginalization."

Kaplan redefines American realism as a genre more engaged with a society in flux than with one merely reflective of the status quo. She reads realistic narrative as a symbolic act of imagining and controlling the social upheavals of early modern capitalism, particularly class conflict and the development of mass culture. Brilliant analyses of works by Howells, Wharton, and Dreiser illuminate the narrative process by which realism constructs a social world of conflict and change.

“[Kaplan] offers some enthralling readings of major novels by Howells, Wharton, and Dreiser. It is a book which should be read by anyone interested in the American novel.”—Tony Tanner, Modern Language Review

”Kaplan has made an important contribution to our understanding of American realism. This is a book that deserves wide attention.”—June Howard, American Literature

"This work views in depth both American literature and character from the time of the American Revolution to the present. From it, there emerges Fiedler's once scandalous - now increasingly accepted - judgment that our literature is incapable of dealing with adult sexuality and is pathologically obsessed with death."--Jacket.

Although published in 1986, Demand the Impossible was written from inside the oppositional political culture of the 1970s. Reading works by Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin, Marge Piercy, and Samuel R. Delany as indicative texts in the intertext of utopian science fiction, Tom Moylan originated the concept of the «critical utopia» as both a periodizing and conceptual tool for capturing the creative and critical capabilities of the utopian imagination and utopian agency. This Ralahine Classics edition includes the original text along with a new essay by Moylan (on Aldous Huxley’s Island) and a set of reflections on the book by leading utopian and science fiction scholars.

"Fetterley helped formulate the concept of resistant reading in her 1978 book, The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. In addition, she led a reappraisal of women's literature of the 19th century and the American canon. She pointed out that American literature had been defined as about men and by men, thus excluding half of the world: women's experience and perspective. [...] In a series of analyses of works by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Irving, James, and Mailer, Fetterly in The Resisting Reader places readerly experience at the forefront and argues that American literature—both past and present—has "immasculated" women readers by compelling them to identify with a so-called universal maleness. This immasculation “burns away” [sic] “the merely personal, the purely subjective” and therefore creates in woman readers a “confusion of consciousness” (xi) in which they cannot read as themselves. Citing John Keats’s complaint that poetry exerts a “palpable design” upon readers, Fetterley writes that American literature does something far more insidious: its designs are "impalpable," so women readers fail to recognize its effects (xi). Calling on women readers to intervene, to resist this hailing, Fetterley calls feminist criticism a political act to “to make available to consciousness that which has been left largely unconscious” (xii) and to “change [sic] the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read” (vii). [...] Now recognized as a classic of feminist literary criticism, The Resisting Reader generated both praise and critique upon publication." - from Wikipedia, "Judith Fetterley"

"In Fiction and Repetition, one of our leading critics and literary theorists offers detailed interpretations of seven novels: Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Thackeray's Henry Esmond, Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles and The Well-Beloved, Conrad's Lord Jim, and Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Between the Acts. Miller explores the multifarious ways in which repetition generates meaning in these novels—repetition of images, metaphors, motifs; repetition on a larger scale of episodes, characters, plots; and repetition from one novel to another by the same or different authors. While repetition creates meanings, it also, Miller argues, prevents the identification of a single determinable meaning for any of the novels; rather, the patterns made by the various repetitive sequences offer alternative possibilities of meaning which are incompatible. He thus sees “undecidability” as an inherent feature of the novels discussed. His conclusions make a provocative contribution to current debates about narrative theory and about the principles of literary criticism generally. His book is not a work of theory as such, however, and he avoids the technical terminology dear to many theorists; his book is an attempt to interpret as best he can his chosen texts. Because of his rare critical gifts and his sensitivity to literary values and nuances, his readings send one back to the novels with a new appreciation of their riches and their complexities of form." - Publisher description

"In the decades spanning the nineteenth century, thousands of women entered the literary marketplace. Twelve of the century's most successful women writers provide the focus for Mary Kelley's landmark study: Maria Cummins, Caroline Howard Gilman, Caroline Lee Hentz, Mary Jane Holmes, Maria McIntosh, Sara Parton, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, E.D.E.N. Southworth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Virginia Terhune, Susan Warner, and Augusta Evans Wilson. These women shared more than commercial success. Collectively they created fictions that Kelley terms "literary domesticity," books that both embraced and called into question the complicated expectations shaping the lives of so many nineteenth-century women. Matured in a culture of domesticity and dismissed by a male writing establishment, they struggled to reconcile public recognition with the traditional roles of wife and mother. Drawing on the 200 volumes of published prose and on the letters, diaries, and journals of these writers, Kelley explores the tensions that accompanied their unprecedented literary success. In a new preface, she discusses the explosion in the scholarship on writing women since the original 1984 publication of Private Woman, Public Stage and reflects on the book's ongoing relevance." - Publisher description

"In the work, Gilbert and Gubar examine the notion that women writers of the nineteenth century were confined in their writing to make their female characters either embody the 'angel' or the 'monster', a struggle which they argue stemmed from male writers' tendencies to categorize female characters as either pure, angelic women or rebellious, unkempt madwomen. In their argument Gilbert and Gubar point to Virginia Woolf, who says women writers must 'kill the aesthetic ideal through which they themselves have been "killed" into art'. While it may be easy to construe that feminist writers embody the 'madwoman' or 'monster', Gilbert and Gubar stress the importance of killing off both figures because neither accurately represents women or women writers. Instead, Gilbert and Gubar urge female writers to strive for autonomous self-definition beyond this dichotomy, which they see as imposed by a reductionist patriarchal view of women's roles. They also explore the way women were inhibited in their writing by what they called the Anxiety of Authorship – the lack of legitimating role-models for the nineteenth-century woman writer.[3] One result was what they identified as the literary palimpsest or double-voiced text – one with a feminist subtext hidden within a more conventional narrative, so that 'surface designs conceal or obscure deeper, less socially acceptable levels of meaning'." - from Wikipedia

"In these three lectures, Cavell situates Emerson at an intersection of three crossroads: a place where both philosophy and literature pass; where the two traditions of English and German philosophy shun one another; where the cultures of America and Europe unsettle one another. "Cavell's 'readings' of Wittgenstein and Heidegger and Emerson and other thinkers surely deepen our understanding of them, but they do much more: they offer a vision of what life can be and what culture can mean. . . . These profound lectures are a wonderful place to make [Cavell's] acquaintance." - Hilary Putnam. -- Publisher's website.

"Hailed by critics and scholars as the most valuable study of Faulkner's fiction, Cleanth Brooks's William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country explores the Mississippi writer's fictional county and the commanding role it played in so much of his work. Brooks shows that Faulkner's strong attachment to his region, with its rich particularity and deep sense of community, gave him a special vantage point from which to view the modern world.Books's consideration of such novels as Light in August, The Unvanquished, As I Lay Dying, and Intruder in the Dust shows the ways in which Faulkner used Yoknapatawpha County to examine the characteristic themes of the twentieth century. Contending that a complete understanding of Faulkner's writing cannot be had without a thorough grasp of fictional detail, Brooks gives careful attention to "what happens: In the Yoknapatawpha novels. He also includes useful genealogies of Faulkner's fictional clans and a character index." - from the publisher

"This reissue of the pioneering and standard book on antebellum women's domestic novels contains a new introduction situating the book in the context of important recent developments in the study of women's writing. Nina Baym considers 130 novels by 48 women, focusing on the works of a dozen especially productive and successful writers. Woman's Fiction is a major-work in nineteenth-century literature, reexamining changes in the literary canon and the meaning of sentimentalism, while responding to current critical discussions of 'the body' in literary texts." - from the publisher

"Georg Lukács wrote The Theory of the Novel in 1914-1915, a period that also saw the conception of Rosa Luxemburg's Spartacus Letters, Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Spengler's Decline of the West, and Ernst Bloch's Spirit of Utopia. Like many of Lukács's early essays, it is a radical critique of bourgeois culture and stems from a specific Central European philosophy of life and tradition of dialectical idealism whose originators include Kant, Hegel, Novalis, Marx, Kierkegaard, Simmel, Weber, and Husserl. The Theory of the Novel marks the transition of the Hungarian philosopher from Kant to Hegel and was Lukács's last great work before he turned to Marxism-Leninism." - from the publisher

"Theory of Prose is one of the twentieth century's most important works of literary theory. It not only anticipates structuralism and poststructuralism, but poses questions about the nature of fiction that are as provocative today as they were in the 1920s. Arguing that writers structure their materials according to artistic principals rather than from attempts to imitate 'reality,' Shklovsky uses the works of Cervantes, Tolstoy, Sterne, Dickens, and others to give us a new way of thinking about fiction and the world." - from the publisher

"During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, women were blamed for having too much passion, imagination and sexual appetite. By the late eighteenth century, however, these qualities had been revalued and appropriated for male artists. The virtues attributed to the Romantic"genius" made him like a woman but not a woman. He belonged to a third, supermale sex. As new and old concepts of woman and genius clashed, there evolved a rhetoric of sexual apartheid which today still affects our perceptions of cultural achievement. Genius from the time of the Greeks has been defined as male. In this study, Christine Battersby traces the history of the concept of genius from ancient Rome to the present day, showing how pagan myths linking divinity with male procreativity have survived into our own time. The author explores the dilemma faced by female creators who have resisted the idea that Art requires "feminine" qualities of mind but male sexual energies. GENDER AND GENIUS argues, against those currently seeking to establish an aesthetics of the "feminine," that a feminist aesthetics must look to the achievements of women artists in the past as well as in the present." - from the publisher

"What is literary theory? Is there a relationship between literature and culture? In fact, what is literature, and does it matter? These questions and more are addressed in Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, a book which steers a clear path through a subject which is often perceived to be complex and impenetrable. Jonathan Culler, an extremely lucid commentator and much admired in the field of literary theory, offers discerning insights into such theories as the nature of language and meaning, and whether literature is a form of self-expression or a method of appeal to an audience. Concise yet thorough, Literary Theory also outlines the ideas behind a number of different schools: deconstruction, semiotics, postcolonial theory, and structuralism, among others. From topics such as literature and social identity to poetry, poetics, and rhetoric, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction is a welcome guide for anyone interested in the importance of literature and the debates surrounding it." - Publisher's description

"Providing a thorough and accessible guide to the major types of critical theories, this book uses everyday language and real-world examples to explain the premises, applications, implications and debates surrounding structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, feminist theory, queer theory, postcolonial theory and postmodernism. It presents with clarity and humor the ideas of such thinkers as Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude Levi-Strauss, Jacques Derrida, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Héléne Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Louis Althusser, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. This book is designed for readers who have no prior knowledge of literary theory, but who wanted to understand and to use the concepts which have radically altered the way we think about literature, culture, and ourselves in the past twenty years." - Publisher description

"This new edition of Michael Ryan's Literary Theory. A Practical Introduction introduces students to the full range of contemporary approaches to the study of literature and culture, from formalism, structuralism, and historicism to ethnic studies, gender studies, and post-colonial studies. The textbook provides basic instruction for first-name students."--Jacket.

"Not too long ago, literary theorists were writing about the death of the novel and the death of the author; today many are talking about the death of Theory. Theory, as the many theoretical ism's (among them postcolonialism, postmodernism, and New Historicism) are now known, once seemed so exciting but has become ossified and insular. This iconoclastic collection is an excellent companion to current anthologies of literary theory, which have embraced an uncritical stance toward Theory and its practitioners. Written by nearly fifty prominent scholars, the essays in Theory's Empire question the ideas, catchphrases, and excesses that have let Theory congeal into a predictable orthodoxy. More than just a critique, however, this collection provides readers with effective tools to redeem the study of literature, restore reason to our intellectual life, and redefine the role and place of Theory in the academy." - Publisher's description

"Theory After Theory provides an overview of developments in literary theory after 1950. It is intended both as a handbook for readers to learn about theory and an intellectual history of the recent past in literary criticism for those interested in seeing how it fits in with the larger culture. Accessible but rigorous, this book provides a wealth of historical and intellectual context that allows the reader to make sense of the movements in recent literary theory." - Publisher description

"The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies brings together the most wide-ranging and up-to-date scholarship ever assembled on the colonial, postcolonial and neo-colonial condition, covering the period from 1492 to the present. The first and only reference of its kind that treats colonial processes as global and millennial. Close to 400 entries offer unprecedented coverage, exploring the dynamics of European conquest from Columbus to China, and critiques of colonialism from Las Casas to Gayatri Spivak. Written by an international cast of leading scholars. An essential reference for scholars in a broad range of fields, including world literature, anthropology, political science, sociology, gender, feminist and queer studies, history and history of science." - from the publisher

"This hugely popular A-Z guide provides a comprehensive overview of the issues which characterize post-colonialism: explaining what it is, where it is encountered and the crucial part it plays in debates about race, gender, politics, language and identity. For this third edition over thirty new entries have been added including: Cosmopolitanism Development Fundamentalism Nostalgia Post-colonial cinema Sustainability Trafficking World Englishes. Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts remains an essential guide for anyone studying this vibrant field." - from the publisher

"One of the most exciting features of English literatures today is the explosion of post-colonial literatures, those literatures written in English in formerly colonised societies. This field has given rise to a great range of theoretical ideas, concepts, problems and debates, and these have been addressed in a great range of articles, essays, talks and books published or written from every continent. This book brings together a selection of these theoretical issues in a way that indicates and celebrates the immense diversity of post-colonial theory. As such it will be an indispensable volume for students, teachers, researchers and theorists, and anybody interested in the field." "The uniqueness of this volume is in its range and comprehensiveness. By bringing together nearly ninety extracts from over fifty different writers, it demonstrates the vast spread of post-colonial theory, the degree to which such theory is emerging outside the metropolitan intellectual centres, and the significance such theory has in the practical political issues of living in this range of societies. This book makes accessible the full range of post-colonial theory, which otherwise would be either difficult or impossible for students, teachers or researchers to fully utilize." - from the publisher

"From the triumphs of nationalism and political and cultural independence to the continuing problems of internal strife and poverty, postcolonial nations have grappled with a range of political, intellectual, and economic issues. This comprehensive volume introduces the major events, figures, and movements that have shaped the postcolonial history of the Anglophone world. With entries from more than fifty leading scholars arranged alphabetically by topic, the Companion brings together the postcolonial histories of Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific, the Caribbean, and Canada. Each entry provides a summary of a historical event or topic and suggestions for further readings. The volume also includes substantive essays on historiography and women's histories. By outlining the cultural, social, and political contexts of postcolonialism as well as examining elements of colonial history, the Companion illuminates complex contemporary debates about globalization, AIDS prevention, immigration, race, politics, economics, culture, and language." - from the publisher

"Since the Second World War, nationalism has emerged as a principal expression of resistance to Western imperialism from the Indian subcontinent to Africa, from Latin America to the Pacific rim. In the aftermath of decolonization and with the emergence of independent states in Asia and Africa, many of Europe's former colonies banded together to form a common bloc, aligned neither with the advanced capitalist 'First World' nor with the socialist 'Second World'. In this historical context, the category of 'Third World literature' emerged, a category which has spawned a whole industry of scholarly and critical studies, largely in the metropolitan West, and notably through the work of migrant 'Third World' intellectuals residing in the West.Through detailed considerations of the work of Fredric Jameson, Edward Said and Salman Rushdie, and of migrant intellectuals generally, In Theory provides incisive analyses of the principal developments in literary theory since the 1960s, of the concept of Indian literature, of the genealogy of the term 'Third World', and of the conditions under which so-called 'colonial discourse theory' emerged in metropolitan intellectual circles.Setting himself against the growing tendency to homogenize 'Third World' literatures and cultures, Aijaz Ahmad has produced a spirited critique of the major theoretical statements on 'colonial discourse' and 'post-colonialism', dismantling many of the commonplaces and conceits that dominate contemporary cultural criticism. Erudite and lucid, Ahmad's remapping of the terrain of current cultural theory is certain to provoke passionate response." - from the publisher

"Few modern voices have had as profound an impact on the black identity and critical race theory as Frantz Fanon, and Black Skin, White Masks represents some of his most important work. Fanon's masterwork is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers. A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history." - from the publisher

"A groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East that is—three decades after its first publication—one of the most important books written about our divided world. In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of 'orientalism' to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined 'the orient' simply as 'other than' the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding." - from the publisher

"Intellectual history on a high order ... and very exciting." —The New York Times

"Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's 1988 essay Can the Subaltern Speak? introduced questions of gender and sexual difference into analyses of representation and offering a profound critique of both subaltern history and radical Western philosophy. Spivak's eloquent and uncompromising arguments engaged with more than just power, politics, and the postcolonial. They confronted the methods of deconstruction, the contemporary relevance of Marxism, the international division of labor, and capitalism's worlding of the world, calling attention to the historical and ideological factors that efface the possibility of being heard. Since the publication of Spivak's essay, the work has been revered, reviled, misread, and misappropriated. It has been cited, invoked, imitated, and critiqued. In these phenomenal essays, eight scholars take stock of this response. They begin by contextualizing the piece within the development of subaltern and postcolonial studies and the quest for human rights, and then they think with Spivak's essay about historical problems of subalternity, voicing, and death. A final section situates Spivak's work in the contemporary world, particularly through readings of new international divisions of labor and the politics of silence among indigenous women of Guatemala and Mexico. In an afterword, Spivak herself looks at the interpretations of her essay and its future incarnations, while specifying some of the questions and histories that remain secreted in the original and revised versions of Can the Subaltern Speak? -- both of which are reprinted in this book." - from the publisher

"What accounts for the power of stories to both entertain and illuminate? This question has long compelled the attention of storytellers and students of literature alike, and over the past several decades it has opened up broader dialogues about the nature of culture and interpretation. This third edition of the bestselling Essentials of the Theory of Fiction provides a comprehensive view of the theory of fiction from the nineteenth century through modernism and postmodernism to the present. It offers a sample of major theories of fictional technique while emphasizing recent developments in literary criticism. The essays cover a variety of topics, including voice, point of view, narration, sequencing, gender, and race." - Publisher's description

"The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and terms—such as 'the implied author,' 'the postulated reader,' and 'the unreliable narrator'—have become part of the standard critical lexicon."

"These essays reveal Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975)--known in the West largely through his studies of Rabelais and Dostoevsky--as a philosopher of language, a cultural historian, and a major theoretician of the novel. The Dialogic Imagination presents, in superb English translation, four selections from Voprosy literatury i estetiki (Problems of literature and esthetics), published in Moscow in 1975. The volume also contains a lengthy introduction to Bakhtin and his thought and a glossary of terminology.Bakhtin uses the category 'novel' in a highly idiosyncratic way, claiming for it vastly larger territory than has been traditionally accepted. For him, the novel is not so much a genre as it is a force, 'novelness,' which he discusses in 'From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse.' Two essays, 'Epic and Novel' and 'Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel,' deal with literary history in Bakhtin's own unorthodox way. In the final essay, he discusses literature and language in general, which he sees as stratified, constantly changing systems of subgenres, dialects, and fragmented 'languages' in battle with one another." - Publisher description

"Beginning with Greek, Arabic, and Sanskrit classics, Hogan explains the philosophical work that has been crucial to literary theory, moving through Kant and the German Idealists (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) and post-Idealists (Nietzsche, Marx), to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and the recent European schools (Foucaultian historicism, structuralism, deconstruction, and so on). He also presents the Anglo-American tradition, from logical positivism to Wittgenstein and the Ordinary Language theorists, from Chomskyan linguistics to cognitive science and philosophy of science. Beyond the founding principles and general structure of these theories, Hogan illustrates their practical application and value with interpretive discussions of Othello and Agha Shahid Ali's 'I Dream It Is Afternoon When I Return to Delhi.'"

"Philosophy and Literature aims to introduce clearly and concisely not only the central philosophical questions concerning the reading and interpretation of literature, but also the possible cross-fertilisations between philosophy and literature. It explores the ways in which philosophy pursues questions relating to the nature and value of literature, while literary analyses can show how philosophy's modes of persuasion are in seeming conflict with its self-definition as the discourse of pure and untainted reason. Examples from both literature and philosophy are the main vehicles for the development of the argument." "The main aspects of the field of philosophy and literature are outlined, and we see the reasons why Plato divided philosophy and literature and banished literature from his ideal state, and how Aristotle answered Plato's criticism of literature. The philosophical characteristic of wanting to define phenomena takes us into different ways of defining literature. This book also investigates the nature of interpretation and its sources of authority, how literary forms can be read as vehicles for the development of philosophical problems, and how different philosophical forms can be analysed as using typically literary means in order to persuade readers. The question of whether it is warranted or useful to maintain the distinction between philosophy and literature is addressed."--Jacket.

"This monumental collection of new and recent essays from an international team of eminent scholars represents the best contemporary critical thinking relating to both literary and philosophical studies of literature. Helpfully groups essays into the field's main sub-categories, among them ‘Relations Between Philosophy and Literature’, ‘Emotional Engagement and the Experience of Reading’, ‘Literature and the Moral Life’, and ‘Literary Language.’ Offers a combination of analytical precision and literary richness. Represents an unparalleled work of reference for students and specialists alike, ideal for course use." - Publisher's description

"This second edition of the classic linguistics text provides a basic descriptive terminology for prose style. What is a noun style? A verb style? A hypotactic or a paratactic one? How does the running style differ from the periodic style? What do "high, middle, and low" prose style mean? How might one apply the classical terminology of rhetorical figures to prose analysis? Analyzing Prose supplies detailed, carefully charted answers to these questions in order to teach the student of prose style how and where to begin." - Publisher description

"Designed to help all writers learn to use style as a rhetorical tool, taking into account audience, purpose, context, and occasion, The Writer’s Style is not only a style guide for a new generation but a new generation of style guide. The book helps writers learn new strategies inductively, by looking at firsthand examples of how they operate rhetorically, as well as deductively, through careful explanations in the text. The work focuses on invention, allowing writers to develop their own style as they analyze writing from varied genres. In a departure from the deficiency model associated with other commonly used style guides, author Paul Butler encourages writers to see style as a malleable device to use for their own purposes rather than a domain of rules or privilege. He encourages writing instructors to present style as a practical, accessible, and rhetorical tool, working with models that connect to a broad range of writing situations—including traditional texts like essays, newspaper articles, and creative nonfiction as well as digital texts in the form of tweets, Facebook postings, texts, email, visual rhetoric, YouTube videos, and others. Though designed for use in first-year composition courses in which students are learning to write for various audiences, purposes, and contexts, The Writer’s Style is a richly layered work that will serve anyone considering how style applies to their professional, personal, creative, or academic writing." - from the publisher

"In Performing Prose, authors Chris Holcomb and M. Jimmie Killingsworth breathe new life into traditional concepts of style. Drawing on numerous examples from a wide range of authors and genres, Holcomb and Killingsworth demonstrate the use of style as a vehicle for performance, a way for writers to project themselves onto the page while managing their engagement with the reader. By addressing style and rhetoric not as an editorial afterthought, but as a means of social interaction, they equip students with the vocabulary and tools to analyze the styles of others in fresh ways, as well as create their own. Whereas most writing texts focus exclusively on analysis or techniques to improve writing, Holcomb and Killingsworth blend these two schools of thought to provide a singular process of thinking about writing. They discuss not only the benefits of conventional methods, but also the use of deviation from tradition; the strategies authors use to vary their style; and the use of such vehicles as images, tropes, and schemes. The goal of the authors is to provide writers with stylistic “footing”: an understanding of the ways writers use style to orchestrate their relationships with readers, subject matter, and rhetorical situations. Packed with useful tips and insights, this comprehensive volume investigates every aspect of style and its use to present an indispensable resource for both students and scholars. Performing Prose moves beyond customary studies to provide a refreshing and informative approach to the concepts and strategies of writing." - Publisher description