Readers Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory

The best of the many guides to literary theory that are currently available. Widdowson and Brooker chart a clear and comprehensively documented path through the full range of what is best in contemporary literary theory…indispensable for all students of literature…An impressive achievement!

John Drakakis, Stirling University

 

This Guide is as stimulating and instructive an introduction to [literary theory] as any reader might wish for.

John Kenny, Centre for the Study of Human Settlement and Historical Change, National University of Ireland, Galway

 

A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory is a classic introduction to the ever-evolving field of modern literary theory, now expanded and updated in its fifth edition.

 

This book presents the full range of positions and movements in contemporary literary theory. It organises the theories into clearly defined sections and presents them in an accessible and lucid style. Students are introduced, through succinct but incisive expositions, to New Criticism, Reader-Response Theory, Marxist Criticism, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Post-Modernism and Feminism, as well as to Cultural Materialism and New Historicism, Postcolonialism  and Gay, Lesbian and Queer Theory. This new edition also considers the ‘New Aestheticism’ and engages with the idea of ‘Post-Theory’.

 

This comprehensive book also contains extensively revised Further Reading lists, including web and electronic resources, and two appendices which recommend glossaries of key theoretical and critical terms and relevant journals.

 

Raman Selden is late Professor of English at the University of Sunderland.

Peter Widdowson is Professor of Literary Studies at the University of Gloucestershire. His most recent books include: Literature (1999); The Palgrave Guide to English Literature and its Contexts 1500–2000 (2004); and Graham Swift (2005).

Peter Brooker is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham. He is the author most recently of  Modernity and Metropolis. Literature, Film and Urban Formations (2002); Bohemia in London . The Social Scene of Early Modernism (2004); and A Glossary of Cultural Theory (second edition, 2002). He is co-editor of Geographies of Modernism (2005) and co-founder of ‘The Modernist Magazines Project’.

 

 

Reflecting the continuing change and development in modern literacy theory, the key features of this book includes its clarity, brevity, equal coverage of the main literary theories and useful bibliographies of further reading.

Literature students will find its clearly defined sections easy to navigate and whilst avoiding over-simplification, it makes a complex subject accessible.

A classic introduction to the ever-evolving field of modern literary theory, now in an expanded and updated edition.

• Considers 'New Aestheticism' and engages with the ideas of 'Post-Theory'
• Contains extensive guides to further reading, web and electronic resources to ensure the quality of students' research
• A glossary defines key theoretical and critical terms
• Contains a guide to relevant journals

 

 

Peter Widdowson is Professor of Literature at the University of Gloucester.  Peter Brooker is Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at University College, Northampton.

Preface to the Fifth Edition

Introduction   

  1. New Criticism, moral formalism and F. R. Leavis   

  2. Russian formalism and the Bakhtin school   

  3. Reader-oriented theories  

  4. Structuralist theories

  5. Marxist theories  

  6.    Feminist theories

  7. Poststructuralist theories   

  8. Postmodernist theories

  9. Postcolonialist theories

 10. Gay, lesbian and queer theories

Conclusion: Post-Theory

Appendix 1: Recommended glossaries of theoretical and critical terms and concepts

Appendix 2: Literary, critical and cultural theory journals

Index