Description
Book SynopsisThe Literary Theory Handbook provides the ideal starting point to the subject for students, offering clarity on the history, scope and application of literary theory, and providing four distinct entryways into this vast and varied discourse.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments x
Alphabetical Listing of Key Movements and Theories xii
Introduction 1
The Nature of Literary Theory 2
What is Literature? 4
The Practice of Theory 8
How To Use the Handbook 9
1 The Rise of Literary Theory 11
Early Developments in Literary Theory 12
Modernism and Formalism, 1890s–1940s 18
Cultural and Critical Theory, 1930s–1960s 24
The Poststructuralist Turn, 1960s–1970s 27
Culture, Gender, and History, 1980s–1990s 33
Postmodernism and Post-Marxism, 1980s–2000s 39
Posthumanism: Theory at the Fin de Siècle 44
Conclusion 47
2 The Scope of Literary Theory 51
1 Form/Structure/Narrative/Genre 52
Formalism and Structuralism 52
New Criticism 59
Chicago School Neo-Aristotelian Theory 63
Narrative Theory/Narratology 68
Theory of the Novel 75
2 Ideology/Philosophy/History/Aesthetics 84
Marxist Theory 84
Critical Theory 91
Post-Marxist Theory 101
New Historicism/Cultural Poetics 119
Postmodernism 125
3 Language/Systems/Texts/Readers 142
Phenomenology and Hermeneutics 142
Reader-Response Theory 153
Deconstruction 160
Poststructuralism 167
4 Mind/Body/Gender/Identity 178
Psychoanalysis 178
Feminist Theory 190
Gender Studies 198
Gay and Lesbian Studies 204
Trauma Studies 209
5 Culture/Ethnicities/Nations/Locations 218
Cultural Studies 218
African American Studies 225
Ethnic and Indigenous Studies 231
Chicano/a Studies 232
Native and Indigenous Studies 235
Asian American Studies 237
Postcolonial Studies 242
Transnationalism 254
6 People/Places/Bodies/Things 266
Posthumanism 266
Evolutionary Literary Theory 278
Object-Oriented Ontologies 283
Disability Studies 290
Ecocriticism 298
3 Key Figures in Literary Theory 313
Theodor Adorno (1903–69) 313
Giorgio Agamben (1942– ) 314
Louis Althusser (1918–90) 315
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895–1975) 316
Roland Barthes (1915–80) 317
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) 318
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) 319
Homi Bhabha (1949– ) 320
Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) 321
Lawrence Buell (1939– ) 322
Judith Butler (1956– ) 323
Hélène Cixous (1937– ) 324
Lennard Davis (1949– ) 324
Teresa de Lauretis (1939– ) 325
Gilles Deleuze (1925–95) and Félix Guattari (1930–92) 326
Paul de Man (1919–83) 327
Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) 328
Terry Eagleton (1943– ) 330
Frantz Fanon (1925–61) 330
Stanley Fish (1938– ) 331
Michel Foucault (1926–84) 332
Henry Louis Gates (1950– ) 333
Sandra Gilbert (1936– ) and Susan Gubar (1944– ) 334
Stephen Greenblatt (1943– ) 335
Elizabeth Grosz (1952– ) 336
Stuart Hall (1932– ) 337
Donna Haraway (1944– ) 338
N. Katherine Hayles (1943– ) 339
bell hooks (1952– ) 340
Luce Irigaray (1930– ) 341
Wolfgang Iser (1926–2007) 342
Fredric Jameson (1934– ) 343
Julia Kristeva (1941– ) 344
Jacques Lacan (1901–81) 345
Bruno Latour (1947– ) 346
Jean-François Lyotard (1924–98) 348
J. Hillis Miller (1928– ) 349
Antonio Negri (1933– ) 350
Jacques Rancière (1940– ) 351
Edward Said (1935–2003) 352
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950–2009) 353
Elaine Showalter (1941– ) 354
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1942– ) 355
Raymond Williams (1921–88) 356
Cary Wolfe (1959– ) 358
Slavoj ?i?ek (1949– ) 358
4 Reading with Literary Theory 361
William Shakespeare, The Tempest 362
John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” 364
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre; Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea 366
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart 370
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse 374
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God 376
Samuel Beckett, Endgame 378
Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children 380
Recommendations for Further Reading 383
Glossary 392
Index 412
