Literary Theory Criticism category: 45208 books

Socialist Literature studies the relationship between the development of socialist literary theory and the process of cultural transformation in modern society by tracing the outline of the theory in the works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao, and examining its reflection in actual works of literature. This...

Literature and the Development of Feminist Theory offers an insightful look at the development of feminist theory through a literary lens. Stressing the significance of feminism's origins in the European Enlightenment, this book traces the literary careers of feminism's major thinkers in order to...

New Historicism has been one of the major developments in literary theory over the last decade, both in the USA and Europe. In this book, Wilson and Dutton examine the theories behind New Historicism and its celebrated impact in practice on Renaissance Drama, providing an important collection both for students of the genre and of literary theory.

From Walt Whitman to the contemporary period, the long poem has been one of the more dynamic, intricate, and yet challenging literary practices of modernity. Addressing those challenges, Writing in Real Time combines systems theory, literary history, and recent debates in poetics to interpret a broad...

First published in 1987, the essays in this volume focus on questions of gender, property and power in the use of rhetoric and the practice of literary genres, and provide a historicised cultural critique. They analyse the links between rhetoric and property, but also representations of women as unruly,...

The Work of Difference addresses a fundamental ontological question: What is literature? And at the heart of this question, it argues, is the problem of the new. How is it that new works or new forms are possible within the rule-governed orders of history, language use, or the social? How are new...

Does a novel focus on one life or many? Alex Woloch uses this simple question to develop a powerful new theory of the realist novel, based on how narratives distribute limited attention among a crowded field of characters. His argument has important implications for both literary studies and narrative...

This is the first full-length study of literary tourism in North America as well as Britain, and a unique exploration of popular response to writers, literary house museums, and the landscapes or "countries " associated with their lives and works. An interdisciplinary study ranging from...

Although the concept of the performative has influenced literary theory in numerous ways, this book represents one of the first full-length studies of performative language in literary texts. Creating States examines the visionary poetry of John Milton and William Blake, using a critical approach...

As a transformative thinker of the twentieth century, whose work spanned all branches of the humanities, Michel Foucault had a complex and profound relationship with literature. And yet this critical aspect of his thought, because it was largely expressed in speeches and interviews, remains virtually...

Literature and literary criticism throughout the twentieth century are famous for their proclamations of the death of the author, the eclipse of character and the "nothingness of personality," as Borges put it. Walter Reed investigates the ideas of personhood developed by one of the most...

The Glossary of Literary and Cultural Theory provides researchers and students with an up-to-date guide through the vibrant and changing debates in Literary and Cultural Studies. In a field where meanings are frequently complex and ambiguous, this text is remarkable for its clarity and usefulness....

Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Joseph Conrad's novels and short stories have consistently figured into - and helped to define - the dominant trends in literary criticism. This book is the first to provide a thorough yet accessible overview of Conrad scholarship and criticism...

Marxism has had an enormous impact on literary and cultural studies, and all those interested in the field need to be aware of its achievements. This collection presents the very best of recent Marxist literary criticism in one single volume. An international group of contributors provide an...