Theory Criticism category: 49531 books

What happens to books as they live in our long-term memory? Why do we find some books entertaining and others not? And how does literary influence work on writers in different ways? Grounded in the findings of empirical psychology, this book amends classic reader-response theory and attends to neglected...

The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre.—Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "The Poet" "[The poet] is a seer.... he is individual... he is complete in himself.... the others are as good as he, only he sees it and they do not....

Jacques Derrida’s revolutionary approach to phenomenology, psychoanalysis, structuralism, linguistics, and indeed the entire European tradition of philosophy—called deconstruction—changed the face of criticism. It provoked a questioning of philosophy, literature, and the human sciences that...

Drawing on a wide array of literary, historical, and theoretical sources, Rachel Lee addresses current debates on the relationship among Asian American ethnic identity, national belonging, globalization, and gender. Lee argues that scholars have traditionally placed undue emphasis on ethnic-based...

While numerous studies on C. S. Lewis’s literary achievements have been published in the past several years, The Rhetoric of Certitude brings much-needed attention to Lewis’s nonfiction prose, identifying his unique style and explaining why his writing has remained popular while that of so many...

Chick lit is the marketing label attributed to a surge of books published in the wake of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) and Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City (1997). Branded by their pink or pastel-coloured book covers, chick-lit novels have been a highly successful and ubiquitous...

This is the first complete study of China's most popular eighteenth-century poet in any Western language. The work consists of a detailed biography, a study of Yuan's revolutionary reinterpretation of Chinese literary theory, and an analysis of his many contributions to the more original genres of...

Explores the history of theories of selfhood, from the Classical era to the present, and demonstrates how those theories can be applied in literary and cultural criticism. Donald E. Hall: * examines all of the major methodologies and theoretical emphases of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,...

This collection of essays offers twelve innovative approaches to contemporary literary criticism. The contributors, women scholars who range from undergraduate students to contingent faculty to endowed chairs, stage a critical dialogue that raises vital questions about the aims and forms of criticism—...

In Shakespeare Relocated, Hugh Macrae Richmond uses his previously published essays to illustrate the development of modern attitudes towards religion, politics, and sexuality. He traces the complex evolution from classical and medieval sources to Reformation and Renaissance ones by reviewing literary...

This book presents an ecocritical reading of DeLillo’s novels in an attempt to mediate between the seemingly incompatible influences of postmodernism and environmentalism. Martucci argues that although DeLillo is responding to and engaging with a postmodern culture of simulacra and simulation, his...

This volume offers a wealth of critical analysis, supported with ample historical and bibliographical information about one of Shakespeare’s most enduringly popular and globally influential plays. Its eighteen new chapters represent a broad spectrum of current scholarly and interpretive approaches,...

Carol Shields and the Extra-Ordinary begins with a previously unpublished article by Shields. In the essays that follow, international scholars employ a variety of theories and methodologies in their analyses of her work, including narrative theory, cultural criticism, feminist analysis, psychoanalytic...

The connection between childhood and poetry runs deep. And yet, poetry written for children has been neglected by criticism and resists prevailing theories of children's literature. Drawing on Walter Ong's theory of orality and on Iain McGilChrist's work on brain function, this book develops a new...