Critical Theory Today: A User-friendly GuideThis new edition of the classic guide offers a thorough and accessible introduction to contemporary critical theory. It provides in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today: feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, reader-response theory, new criticism, structuralism and semiotics, deconstruction, new historicism, cultural criticism, lesbian/gay/queer theory, African-American criticism, and postcolonial criticism. The chapters provide an extended explanation of each theory, using examples from everyday life, popular culture, and literary texts; a list of specific questions critics who use that theory ask about literary texts; an interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory; a list of questions for further practice to guide readers in applying each theory to different literary works; and a bibliography of primary and secondary works for further reading. This book can be used as the only text in a course or as a precursor to the study of primary theoretical works. It motivates readers by showing them what critical theory can offer in terms of their practical understanding of literary texts and in terms of their personal understanding of themselves and the world in which they live. Both engaging and rigorous, it is a "how-to" book for undergraduate and graduate students new to critical theory and for college professors who want to broaden their repertoire of critical approaches to literature. |
Contents
Chapter 1 Everything you wanted to know about critical theory but were afraid to ask | 1 |
Chapter 2 Psychoanalytic criticism | 11 |
Chapter 3 Marxist criticism | 53 |
Chapter 4 Feminist criticism | 83 |
Chapter 5 New Criticism | 135 |
Chapter 6 Readerresponse criticism | 169 |
Chapter 7 Structuralist criticism | 209 |
Chapter 8 Deconstructive criticism | 249 |
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African American analysis analyze argue behavior believe Buchanan chapter characters classism colonialist colonized concepts conflicts critical race theory critical theory cultural criticism Daisy Daisy's Dan Cody deconstruction desire discourse dream economic emotional example experience fear feel feminism feminist focus Gatsby's gender girl Harlem heterosexual historicism homosexual human identity images interpretation intersexed Jay Gatsby Jordan kind language lesbian literary critics literary text literature lives male Marxist meaning Myrtle narrative narrator Nick Nick's novel objet petit oppression patriarchal ideology Pecola poem political postcolonial criticism produced psychoanalytic psychological queer questions racial racism reader-response criticism readers reading refer relationship represent response reveal role romantic Scott Fitzgerald self-made semiotics sexual signifier social story structuralist structure Symbolic text's theme theorists tion Tom Buchanan Tom's traditional unconscious understand unfulfilled longing University Press Wolfsheim woman women words writing York