Name: Literary Theory
Rating: 3.625 (12 reviews)
ISBN: 9781402768750

Jonathan D. Culler

This work explores the role of the literary in theory, with wide-ranging analysis of key concepts and disciplinary practices.

Literary Theory

Jonathan Culler

A brief introduction to literary theory that explores the various moves that literary theory has encouraged.

A Very Short Introduction

Tim Pendry

Although Culler's 'very short' (in fact, perfectly sufficient) introduction to literary theory is certainly about literary theory, it also covers much greater ground - 'Theory' itself and its derivatives, cultural studies, feminist theory, gender studies and anti-colonialist theory. This is because the Academy was drawn deeply into this territory in the latter quarter of the last century. The contemporary study of literature cannot be seriously understood without understanding the incursions into it of these external elements. As someone who is deeply resistant to the cultural imperialism of Theory and its transformation of thought into ideology, I found Culler's guide to be fair-minded and reasonable, outlining the state of literary theory at the end of the last century without taking any particular partisan position. As a result I can (whatever one's views on what has happened to Western culture) recommend the book as a decent guide to the facts of what has happened. Indeed, it is quite an achievement to cover so much ground so clearly with only very few obscurities in a discipline filled with the latter. To his credit, he does see the wood for the trees. Although it is more than it promises in its title, he does not neglect the discussion of literature qua literature and he is careful to present more traditional views of writing and text alongside the more fashionable ones. As a result, for once in my reviews, I do not feel I have to 'critique a critique' but can simply let the text lie as a useful guide - whatever private despair I may feel at the ideologisation of culture by an excess of over-wrought junior academics and their politicised confreres.

Kris 

Isabella Agostino

Celestine Taevs-Nakaya

Professor of English Jonathan Culler

What is Literary Theory? Is there a relationship between literature and culture? In fact, what is Literature, and does it matter? These are the sorts of questions addressed by Jonathan Culler in a book which steers a clear path through a subject often perceived to be complex and impenetrable. It offers discerning insights into theories about the nature of language and meaning, whether literature is a form of self-expression ora method of appeal to an audience, and outlines the ideas behind a number of different schools: deconstruction, semiotics, postcolonial theory, and structuralism amongst them.

Youssef Katamish

Kevin Bertolero

Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction offers insights into theories about the nature of language and meaning, human identity, and the power of language. Fully updated for 2011 and including a new chapter on 'Ethics and aesthetics', it steers a clear and lucid path through an often impenetrable subject.

Literary Theory

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