How Literature Works: 50 Key Concepts

John Sutherland

Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2011 - Literary Criticism - 205 pages

...For any reader seeking a greater appreciation of their favorite novel, poem, or play. Offers a lively and straightforward guide to literary thinking. With a series of compact essays the...literary critic John Sutherland--...admired for his wit and clear reasoning--strips away the obscurity and pretension of literary study. His book offers concise definitions and clear examples of the fifty concepts that all book lovers should know. It includes basic descriptive terms (ambiguity, epic), the core vocabulary of literary culture (genre, style), and devices employed by authors (irony, defamiliarization). More broadly, "How Literature Works" explores the animating concepts behind literary theory (textuality, sexual politics), traces the forces that impact literature's role in the real world (obscenity, plagiarism), and grapples with the future of reading (fanfic, e-book).

What people are saying

Review: How Literature Works: 50 Key Concepts

User Review  - Mitch Lavender - Goodreads

This bluntly-worded volume will pound you over the head with writing concepts you think you understand. It has helped me appreciate why I enjoy some stories and not others. It's ostentatious, but move past that and you'll find the guidance is academic and well-founded.

Review: 50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know (50 Ideas You Really Need to Know )

User Review  - Ian - Goodreads

This books covers a lot of ground in 208pp. Some of the fifty ideas are pretty straightforward, some even tending to be trite ('the e-book' for example). But others give a masterful summary of a trend ...

About the author

John Sutherland, who has been a book columnist for the Guardian and a chair of judges for the Man-Booker prize, is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London.

Bibliographic information

• Title: How Literature Works: 50 Key Concepts
• Author: John Sutherland
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2011
• ISBN: 0199794200, 9780199794201
• Length: 205 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / Books & Reading; Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / Reference; Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory