How to Study Literature – serie

The new edition of this highly popular guide, How to Read World Literature, addresses the unique challenges and joys faced when approaching the literature of other cultures and eras. Fully revised to address important developments in World Literature, and generously expanded with new material, this second edition covers a wide variety of genres – from lyric and epic poetry to drama and prose fiction – and discusses how each form has been used in different eras and cultures. An ideal introduction for those new to the study of World Literature, as well as beginners to ancient and foreign literature, this book offers a variety of "modes of entry" to reading these texts. The author, a leading authority in the field, draws on years of teaching experience to provide readers with ways of thinking creatively and systematically about key issues, such as reading across time and cultures, reading works in translation, emerging global perspectives, postcolonialism, orality and literacy, and more. Accessible and enlightening, offers readers the tools to navigate works as varied as Homer, Sophocles, Kalidasa, Du Fu, Dante, Murasaki, Moliere, Kafka, Wole Soyinka, and Derek WalcottFully revised and expanded to reflect the changing face of the study of World Literature, especially in the English-speaking worldNow includes more major authors featured in the undergraduate World Literature syllabus covered within a fuller critical contextFeatures an entirely new chapter on the relationship between World Literature and postcolonial literatureHow to Read World Literature, Second Edition is an excellent text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in World Literature. It is also a fascinating and informative read for all readers with an interest in foreign and ancient literature and the history of civilization.

Literary Theory: A Practical Introduction, Third Edition, presents a comprehensive introduction to thefull range of contemporary approaches to the study of literature and culture, from formalism, structuralism, and historicism to ethnic, gender, and science studies.Introduces students to a variety of contemporary approaches to the study of literature and cultureDemonstrates how the varying perspectives on texts can lead to different interpretations of the same workFeatures numerous updates that include new literary texts, new and expanded sectionsRepresents the ideal accompaniment to the upcoming Third Edition of LiteraryTheory: An Anthology

This clear and succinct book is designed for general readers who want to know how to go about reading Shakespeare’s works for pleasure. Encourages readers to approach Shakespeare's works aggressively, interactively, and questioningly Focuses on six popular Shakespeare plays - A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV Part I, Hamlet, King Lear and The Tempest Recommends the best editions, recordings and DVDs / videos of these plays Discusses the production of the plays on stage and screen Introduces readers to different genres in Shakespeare – romantic comedy, English history, tragedy and romance Avoids jargon and abstract literary theory

This clear and succinct book is designed for general readers who want to know how to go about reading Shakespeare’s works for pleasure. Encourages readers to approach Shakespeare's works aggressively, interactively, and questioningly Focuses on six popular Shakespeare plays - A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV Part I, Hamlet, King Lear and The Tempest Recommends the best editions, recordings and DVDs / videos of these plays Discusses the production of the plays on stage and screen Introduces readers to different genres in Shakespeare – romantic comedy, English history, tragedy and romance Avoids jargon and abstract literary theory

This succinct introduction to modern theories of literature and the arts demonstrates how each theory is built and what it can accomplish. Represents a wide variety of theories, including phenomenological theory, hermeneutical theory, gestalt theory, reception theory, semiotic theory, Marxist theory, deconstruction, anthropological theory, and feminist theory. Uses classic literary texts, such as Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn, Spenser’s The Shephearde’s Calender and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land to illustrate his explanations. Includes key statements by the major proponents of each theory. Presents the different theories objectively, allowing students to decide which if any, they subscribe to. Gives students a sense of the potential of theory. Includes a glossary of technical terms.

An innovative introduction to writing poetry designed for students of creative writing and budding poets alike. Challenges the reader’s sense of what is possible in a poem. Traces the history and highlights the potential of poetry. Focuses on the fundamental principles of poetic construction, such as: Who is speaking? Who are they speaking to? Why does their speaking take this form? Considers both experimental and mainstream approaches to contemporary poetry. Consists of fourteen chapters, making it suitable for use over one semester. Encourages readers to experiment with their poetry.

An innovative introduction to writing poetry designed for students of creative writing and budding poets alike. Challenges the reader’s sense of what is possible in a poem. Traces the history and highlights the potential of poetry. Focuses on the fundamental principles of poetic construction, such as: Who is speaking? Who are they speaking to? Why does their speaking take this form? Considers both experimental and mainstream approaches to contemporary poetry. Consists of fourteen chapters, making it suitable for use over one semester. Encourages readers to experiment with their poetry.

How to Read the Victorian Novel provides a unique introduction to the genre. Using examples from the classics, like The Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, The Woman in White, and Middlemarch, it demonstrates just how unfamiliar their familiarity is. The book attempts to break free of the sense that the Victorian novel is somehow old fashioned, moralizing, and formally careless by emphasizing the complexity, difficulty, and rare pleasures of the Victorian writers’ strenuous efforts both to entertain and to teach; to create serious “art” and to appeal to wide audiences; to respond both to the demands of publishing and also to their own rich imaginative engagement with a world heading into modernity at full speed. Broad in its scope, the text surveys a wide variety of literary types and explores the cultural and historical developments of the novel form itself. The book also poses a series of “big questions” pertaining to money, capitalism, industry, race, gender, and, at the same time, to formal issues, such as plotting, perspective, and realist representation. In addition, it locates the qualities that give to the great variety of Victorian novels a “family resemblance,” the material conditions of their production, their tendency to multiply plots, their obsession with class and money, their problematic handling of gender questions, and their commitment to realist representation.How to Read the Victorian Novel challenges our comfortable expectations of the genre in order to explore intensively a burgeoning and changing literary form which mirrors a burgeoning and changing society.