An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory

by Nicholas Royle and Andrew Bennett

Book Overview

Lively, original and highly readable, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory is the essential guide to literary studies. Starting at 'The Beginning' and concluding with 'The End',... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0582822955
• ISBN13: 9780582822955
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Longman Publishing Group
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.6" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A good introduction to literary theory

The Bennett and Royle is really the best intro to theory text I've seen -- a small book, but readable and fairly broad, and yet scrupulous in the ways it describes various theoretical approaches. Each chapter discusses a different theoretical "issue." So, the 2nd edition includes the following chapter titles: The beginning, Readers and reading, The author, The text and the world, The uncanny, Monuments, Narrative, Character, Voice, Figures and tropes, Laughter, The tragic, History, Me, Ghosts, Sexual difference, God, Ideology, Desire, Queer, Suspense, Racial difference, The colony, The performative, Secrets, The postmodern, Pleasure, The end. Two aspects I particularly like: (1) The authors describe theory as related to literary texts, using lots of examples from literature to illustrate the concepts--a practice that I think helps the reader access the theory. (2) Each chapter concludes with a short section called Further Reading, in which the authors explain, in prose, other texts that might be of interest to the reader, and how and why they relate to the theory of the chapter.