A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory
Preface to the Fifth Edition ix
Introduction 1
1 New Criticism, moral formalism and F. R. Leavis 15
Origins: Eliot, Richards, Empson 15
The American New Critics 18
Moral formalism: F. R. Leavis 23
2 Russian formalism and the Bakhtin School 29
Shklovsky, Mukar ˇovsky ´, Jakobson 30
The Bakhtin School 39
3 Reader-oriented theories 45
Phenomenology: Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer 49
Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser 50
Fish, Riffaterre, Bleich 55
4 Structuralist theories 62
The linguistic background 63
Structuralist narratology 67
Metaphor and metonymy 72
Structuralist poetics 75
5 Marxist theories 82
Soviet Socialist Realism 84
Lukács and Brecht 86
The Frankfurt School and After: Adorno and Benjamin 91
‘Structuralist’ Marxism: Goldmann, Althusser, Macherey 95
‘New Left’ Marxism: Williams, Eagleton, Jameson 99
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6 Feminist theories 115
First-wave feminist criticism: Woolf and de Beauvoir 117
Second-wave feminist criticism 120
Kate Millett: sexual politics 123
Marxist feminism 125
Elaine Showalter: gynocriticism 126
French feminism: Kristeva, Cixous, Irigaray 129
7 Poststructuralist theories 144
Roland Barthes 148
Psychoanalytic theories: 153
Jacques Lacan 156
Julia Kristeva 161
Deleuze and Guattari 162
Deconstruction: Jacques Derrida 164
American deconstruction 171
Michel Foucault 178
New Historicism and Cultural Materialism 180
8 Postmodernist theories 197
Jean Baudrillard 200
Jean-François Lyotard 203
Postmodernism and Marxism 206
Postmodern feminisms 209
9 Postcolonialist theories 218
Edward Said 220
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 223
Homi K. Bhabha 226
Race and ethnicity 229
10 Gay, lesbian and queer theories 243
Gay theory and criticism 244
Lesbian feminist theory and criticism 247
Queer theory and criticism 252
Conclusion: Post-Theory 267
Appendix 1: Recommended glossaries of theoretical
and critical terms and concepts 280
Appendix 2: Literary, critical and cultural theory journals 282
Index of names, titles and topics 283
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