This incredibly useful volume offers an introduction to the history of literary criticism and theory from ancient Greece to the present. Grounded in the close reading of landmark theoretical texts, while seeking to encourage the reader's critical response, Pelagia Goulimari examines: major thinkers and critics from Plato and Aristotle to Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, Said and Butler; key concepts, themes and schools in the history of literary theory: mimesis, inspiration, reason and emotion, the self, the relation of literature to history, society, culture and ethics, feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, queer theory; genres and movements in literary history: epic, tragedy, comedy, the novel; Romanticism, realism, modernism and postmodernism. Historical connections between theorists and theories are traced and the book is generously cross-referenced. With useful features such as key-point conclusions, further reading sections, descriptive text boxes, detailed headings, and with a comprehensive index, this book is the ideal introduction to anyone approaching literary theory for the first time or unfamiliar with the scope of its history.

German radicals of the 1960s announced the death of literature. For them, literature both past and present, as well as conventional discussions of literary issues, had lost its meaning. In The Institution of Criticism, Peter Uwe Hohendahl explores the implications of this crisis from a Marxist perspective and attempts to define the tasks and responsibilities of criticism in advanced capitalist societies. Hohendahl takes a close look at the social history of literary criticism in Germany since the eighteenth century. Drawing on the tradition of the Frankfurt School and on Jürgen Habermas's concept of the public sphere, Hohendahl sheds light on some of the important political and social forces that shape literature and culture. The Institution of Criticism is made up of seven essays originally published in German and a long theoretical introduction written by the author with English-language readers in mind. This book conveys the rich possibilities of the German perspective for those who employ American and French critical techniques and for students of contemporary critical theory.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. The Critical Revolution Turns Right -- 2. The Scholarly Turn -- 3. The Historicist/Contextualist Paradigm -- 4. The Critical Unconscious -- Conclusion: The Future of Criticism -- Appendix: The Critical Paradigm and T.S. Eliot -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

The works collected in this volume have profoundly shaped the history of criticism in the Western world: they created much of the terminology still in use today and formulated enduring questions about the nature and function of literature. In Ion, Plato examines the god-like power of poets to evoke feelings such as pleasure or fear, yet he went on to attack this manipulation of emotions and banished poets from his ideal Republic. Aristotle defends the value of art in his Poetics, and his analysis of tragedy has influenced generations of critics from the Renaissance onwards. In the Art of Poetry, Horace promotes a style of poetic craftsmanship rooted in wisdom, ethical insight and decorum, while Longinus' On the Sublime explores the nature of inspiration in poetry and prose.

Presents a coherent and accessible historical account of the major phases of British and American Twentieth-century criticism, from 'decadent' aestheticism to feminist, decontsructonist and post-colonial theories. Special attention is given to new perspectives on Shakesperean criticism, theories of the novel and models of the literary canon. The book will help to define and account for the major developments in literary criticism during this century exploring the full diversity of critical work from major critics such as T S Eliot and F R Leavis to minor but fascinating figures and critical schools. Unlike most guides to modern literary theory, its focus is firmly on developments within the English speaking world.

Publisher Description

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.

Vol. 8 includes guidelines to poetry explication.

The interviewees of this volume fall into three groups: the main players who brought about the rise of theory (Fish, Gallop, Spivak, Bhabha); a younger group of post-theorists (Bérubé, Dimock, Nealon, Warren); the anti-critique theorists (Felski); and new order theorists (Puchner, Wolfe). They discuss elemental questions, such as trying to grasp what was logic and what was rhetoric; trying to see down the road while fog and turmoil held visibility to arm’s length; and trying to pick legible meanings out of the cultural blanket of deafening noise. Theorists were not only good thinkers but also pioneers who were seeking profound transformations.