A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory

A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory is a classic introduction to the complex yet crucial area of literary theory. This book is known for its clear, accessible style and its thorough, logical approach, guiding the reader through the essentials of literary theory. It includes two new chapters: ‘New Materialisms’ which incorporates ecocriticism, animal studies, posthumanism and thing theory; ‘21st Century and Future Developments’ which includes technology, digital humanities, ethics and affect.

Contents Preface to the Sixth Edition Introduction 1. New Criticism, moral formalism and F. R. Leavis Origins: Eliot, Richards, Empson The American New Critic Moral formalism: F. R. Leavis 2. Russian formalism and the Bakhtin School Shklovsky, Mukarovský, Jakobson The Bakhtin School 3. Reader-oriented theories Phenomenology: Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser Fish, Riffaterre, Bleich 4. Structuralism The linguistic background Structuralist narratology Metaphor and metonymy Structuralist poetics 5. Marxism Soviet Socialist Realism Lukács and Brecht The Frankfurt School and After: Adorno and Benjamin ‘Structuralist’ Marxism: Goldmann, Althusser, Macherey ‘New Left’ Marxism: Williams, Eagleton, Jameson 6. Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud Jacques Lacan Trauma Studies Slavoj Žižek 7. Feminism First-wave feminist criticism: Woolf and de Beauvoir Second-wave feminist criticism Kate Millett: sexual politics Marxist feminism Elaine Showalter: gynocriticism French feminism: Kristeva, Cixous, Irigaray 8 Poststructuralism Roland Barthes Deleuze and Guattari Deconstruction: Jacques Derrida American deconstruction Michel Foucault New Historicism and Cultural Materialism 9. Postmodernism Jean Baudrillard Jean-François Lyotard Postmodernism and Marxism Postmodern feminisms 10. Postcolonialism, race and ethnicity Edward Said Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Homi K. Bhabha Race and ethnicity 11. Gay, lesbian and queer theories Gay theory and criticism Lesbian feminist theory and criticism Queer theory and criticism 12. Post-theory 13. Ecocriticism, animal studies, thing theory Ecocriticism Animal Studies Thing theory 14. World literature and digital humanities World literature Digital Humanities Appendix 1: Glossaries and dictionaries of theoretical and critical terms 2: Literary, critical and cultural theory journals Index of names, titles and topics

Raman Selden was Professor of English at Lancaster University and Sunderland Polytechnic. He is remembered with lasting admiration for his contribution to 17th century studies and especially for his pioneering and lucid introductions of literary theory. His warmth, commitment and energy remain an inspiration to former colleagues and students. Peter Widdowson was Professor of English at the Universities of Middlesex, Brighton and Gloucester. He was able uniquely to combine seriousness with wit and good humour. His strong and questioning historical sense, evident in his teaching and notably in his work on Thomas Hardy and on the ramifications of contemporary theory, remains a model for younger scholars. Peter Brooker is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Culture, Film and Media at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. He is the author of A Glossary of Literary and Cultural Theory (Routledge, 2016) and Bertolt Brecht: Dialectics, Poetry, Politics (Routledge Revivals, 2016).