Literary Theory An Anthology
Shane Rouse
The new edition of this bestselling literary theory anthology has been thoroughly updated to include influential texts from innovative new areas, including disability studies, eco-criticism, and ethics.
Global Literary Theory: An Anthology comprises a selection of classic, must-read essays alongside contemporary and global extracts, providing an engaging and timely overview of literary theory. The volume is thoroughly introduced in the General Introduction and Part Introductions and each piece is contextualized within the wider sphere of global theory. Each part also includes annotated suggestions for further reading to help the reader navigate the extensive literature on each topic.The volume engages with the "internationalizing" of the curriculum as well as the globalization of literature and theory.
Crucially, this anthology shows that ethnic, postcolonial studies and globalization are not simply niche areas of literary study but are of concern across the contemporary humanities and that new voices are always emerging, and being discovered, from around the globe. As such, this volume offers a refocusing of essential literary theory, extending the canon in line with ongoing debates concerning contemporary cultural and geographic borders.
Richard J. Lane is a professor of English at Vancouver Island University, Canada, where he is the Director of The Literary Theory Research Group and the Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. He has written several books and articles on literary theory and has experience of teaching and presenting on literary theory at universities across the US, Canada and the UK.
"This timely and path-breaking anthology makes it irresponsible not to study critical and literary theories in a global context." Alexander C. Y. Huang, Recipient of the MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies
"This substantive and significant collection of literary theory brings together a wealth of a really important critical material from around the world, including but also going beyond writers who have defined the field within the Western Academy. As a result, its carefully chosen and lucidly introduced extracts provide students with an exciting and accessible way into key conceptual, political and aesthetic questions and debates concerning the study of literature and culture in a global context. Global Literary Theory is a rich, stimulating and timely anthology, ideally positioned to help frame and shape how we engage with literary studies in the twenty-first century." Dr Paul Young, University of Exeter, UK
"Responding to our rapidly changing, globalised planet, this groundbreaking anthology fulfils three crucial tasks for students and teachers. It begins to help us understand different world traditions of literary interpretation; it introduces new theories and problems for reading literature internationally; and it will start to establish a properly global literary studies." Professor Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
"Global Literary Theory takes its promise of global coverage seriously; the anthology covers the now canonical figures of literary theory and brings them into useful and often challenging dialogue with newer voices from around the world. But this is not to say that the concept of the global gets a free pass; the valuable section on discourses of globalization, when read alongside the original selections of material on postcolonialism and race (these selections ranging from a reading of the influence of the internet in China to postmodern constructions of Islam), mean that the anthology itself practices the critical awareness it seeks to promote in students." Dr Christopher Pittard, University of Portsmouth, UK
"Global Literary Theory: An Anthology is a dynamic and illuminating synthesis of the fast moving and diverse field of literary theory. It introduces and subtly contextualizes a wide range of theoretical approaches from Russian formalism to postcolonialism, queer theory and globalization theory while never losing sight of their historical matrix and ongoing dialogue. We are reminded for example that the collapse of English literature's 'civilizing mission' was the catalyst for literary studies replenishment by a variety of transformative and politicized theoretical approaches and that Derridean deconstruction cannot be thought in isolation from his liminal Algerian heritage. Much more than a synopsis, Global Literary Theory is a superb intervention into the ongoing transnational conversation that constitutes contemporary literary theory." Dr Ned Curthoys, Australian National University, Australia
To critique an art that can be catharsis or policy proposal and often is both, literary theory must contend with the slippery concepts of author, textual meaning, and the context of the text itself. Founded on hermeneutics, or the interpretation of scripture, literary theory has adopted a similar approach to literature. It examines literary texts with the assumption that, if written well, they contain all the complexity, linguistic richness, symbolism, sociology, history, and meaning of the Bible. This richness, this code within the text, then requires someone else to interpret and speak for it.
The most commonly used source for literary criticism is an anthology. A literary criticism anthology is a collection of previously published essays and articles on a specific author or story usually written by many different authors and includes an editor or compiler who puts them all together for re-publication. When citing an anthology you will include both the author of the essay and the editor(s) of the book the essays were re-published in. You can usually use more than one essay from the same published anthology because the essays are written by different people. The sample citations (in the next three tabs) are from anthologies available at the CF Library.
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The anthology contains classic texts from Formalism, Structuralism, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction, Historicism, and Feminism, and it includes cutting edge work by leading theoreticians in such field as Post-Modernism, Cultural Studies, Post-Colonial Criticism, Gay/Lesbian Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Film. The anthology constitutes the most comprehensive collection of the schools and methods that make up the very rich and exciting field of literary and cultural studies.
"A very basic way of thinking about literary theory is that these ideas act as different lenses critics use to view and talk about art, literature, and even culture. These different lenses allow critics to consider works of art based on certain assumptions within that school of theory. The different lenses also allow critics to focus on particular aspects of a work they consider important.
For example, if a critic is working with certain Marxist theories, s/he might focus on how the characters in a story interact based on their economic situation. If a critic is working with post-colonial theories, s/he might consider the same story but look at how characters from colonial powers (Britain, France, and even America) treat characters from, say, Africa or the Caribbean. "
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Dr. Ming Dong Gu, professor of Chinese and comparative literature and director of the Confucius Institute at UT Dallas, was asked by the general editor of Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism to choose the first Chinese theorist to be included in the publication.
The comprehensive anthology expanded in the newly published second edition to include theorists from Chinese, Indian and Arabic traditions. That change represents a stark difference from the typical anthologies of literary theory that cover Western theorists exclusively.
"In general, literary theory refers to writings that deal with the underlying principles associated with the study of literature, language, interpretation, culture, and all sorts of related issues. Many of the thinkers who have shaped major theoretical approaches to literature come from areas outside the boundaries of traditional literary studies, especially in fields such as philosophy and the social sciences. Literary criticism usually refers to analysis of a particular work or works: studies of individual authors, genres, literary movements, and the like.
The two terms are closely related, however, since both literary theorists and literary critics study literary texts using a theoretical framework. One way of conceiving of the difference between the two relates to the underlying aims of the writing. A work of literary theory might use literary texts as examples or illustrations that serve to develop a larger theoretical point, while a literary critic might use a theoretical perspective as a means of better understanding a literary text. The distinction is quite subtle and subjective, though, because these two sides -- theory and criticism -- constantly reinforce each other."
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