How to Interpret Literature

Offering a refreshing combination of accessibility and intellectual rigor, How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies presents an up-to-date, concise, and wide-ranging historicist survey of contemporary thinking in critical theory. Ideal for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in literary and critical theory, this is the only book of its kind that thoroughly merges literary studies with cultural studies, including film. Robert Dale Parker provides a critical look at the major movements in literary studies since the 1930s, including those often omitted from other texts. He includes chapters on New Criticism, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Queer Studies, Marxism, Historicism and Cultural Studies, Postcolonial and Race Studies, and Reader Response. Parker weaves connections among chapters, showing how these different ways of thinking respond to and build upon each other. Through these exchanges, he prepares students to join contemporary dialogues in literary and cultural studies. Parker's engaging writing style relates directly to today's students and their daily lives.He underscores the connections between critical theory and students' other coursework, as well as its links to their technologically filled lives. The text is enhanced by charts, text boxes that address frequently asked questions, photos, and a bibliography. Intellectually challenging yet remarkably readable-and devoted to the interpretation of both literary and cultural studies-How to Interpret Literature stands out from other surveys of critical theory. Its flexible format makes this volume ideal as either a stand-alone text or in conjunction with an anthology of primary readings.

ISBN 0195334701   Pages 336 ISBN13 9780195334708 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Oxford University Press Inc   Weight (grammes) 373 Imprint Oxford University Press Inc   Published in New York Format Paperback   Height (mm) 199 Publication date 27 Nov 2008   Width (mm) 140 Library of Congress 2007035122   Spine width (mm) 16 DEWEY 801.950904   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate DEWEY edition DC22

Ch. 1		Introduction		1
Ch. 2		New Criticism		9
		How to Interpret: Key Concepts for New Critical Interpretation		16
		Historicizing the New Criticism: Rethinking Literary Unity		20
		The Intentional Fallacy and the Affective Fallacy		28
		How to Interpret: A New Critical Example		35
Ch. 3		Structuralism		40
		Structuralism in Cultural and Literary Studies		47
		The Structuralist Study of Narrative: Narratology		61
		Narrative Syntax, Metaphor, and Metonymy		71
Ch. 4		Deconstruction		77
		Writing, Speech, and Differance		85
		Deconstruction Beyond Derrida		89
		Deconstruction, Essentialism, and Identity		92
		How to Interpret: More Deconstructive Examples		98
Ch. 5		Psychoanalysis		101
		The Psychoanalytic Understanding of the Mind		104
		Sigmund Freud		107
		How to Interpret: Models of Psychoanalytic Interpretation		112
		From the Interpretation of Dreams to the Interpretation of Literature		116
		Jacques Lacan		126
Ch. 6		Feminism		136
		Early Feminist Criticism		139
		Sex and Gender		144
		Feminisms		145
		How to Interpret: Feminist Examples		149
		Feminism and Visual Pleasure		152
Ch. 7		Queer Studies		162
		More...

"I prefer this book, with its lucid summary of major movements and deep insight into how different critics used or rejected theory, to every comparable book I'm aware of in the field. How to Interpret Literature offers a historical account of theory that's genuinely historical, and not simply a list of major concepts associated with different theoretical schools. Robert Dale Parker explains how theoretical arguments develop over time, how new theories build on older arguments, and how theoretical arguments blend and overlap. He never loses sight of a larger, highly original argument, about the necessary relation between critical thinking and everyday life." --Barry Faulk, Florida State University

"This history of critical movements as interrelated developmentally will be more helpful to students than the names-and-dates chronology of its competitors. Its greatest strength is not just clarity but energy--its author's delight in sharing with a general audience the 'secrets' of

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