How To Interpret Literature

Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies

Robert Dale Parker

New accounts of ecocriticism and disability studies, unmatched by any other survey of contemporary theory

Revised and updated throughout, including new discussions of intersectionality, queer of color critique, Jacques Rancière, and debates around paranoid, suspicious, symptomatic, and surface reading

How To Interpret Literature

Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies

Third Edition

Robert Dale Parker

Description

Offering a refreshing combination of accessibility and intellectual rigor, How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies, Third Edition, presents an up-to-date, concise, and wide-ranging historicist survey of contemporary thinking in critical theory. The only book of its kind that thoroughly merges literary studies with cultural studies, this text provides a critical look at the major movements in literary studies since the 1930s, including those often omitted from other texts. It is also the only up-to-date survey of literary theory that devotes extensive treatment to Queer Theory and Postcolonial and Race Studies. How to Interpret Literature is ideal as a stand-alone text or in conjunction with an anthology of primary readings such as Robert Dale Parker's Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies.

Distinctive Features* A conversational and engaging tone that speaks directly to today's students* Wider coverage than any book of its kind* A rich assortment of pedagogical features (charts, text boxes, photos, and suggestions for further reading)

How To Interpret Literature

Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies

Third Edition

Robert Dale Parker

Table of Contents

Every chapter ends with Further ReadingPrefaceAcknowledgments1. Introduction 2. New Criticism Before New CriticismHow to Interpret: Key Concepts for New Critical InterpretationHistoricizing the New Criticism: Rethinking Literary UnityThe Intentional Fallacy and the Affective FallacyHow to Interpret: A New Critical ExampleThe Influence of New Criticism3. Structuralism Key Concepts in StructuralismHow to Interpret: Structuralism in Cultural and Literary StudiesThe Death of the AuthorHow to Interpret: The Detective NovelStructuralism, Formalism, and Literary HistoryThe Structuralist Study of Narrative: NarratologyHow to Interpret: Focalization and Free Indirect DiscourseNarrative Syntax, and Metaphor and Metonymy4. Deconstruction Key Concepts in DeconstructionHow to Interpret: A Deconstructionist ExampleWriting, Speech, and DifféranceDeconstruction beyond DerridaDeconstruction, Essentialism, and IdentityHow to Interpret: Further Deconstructionist Examples5. Psychoanalysis Clinical PsychoanalysisKey Concepts in Psychoanalysis: The Psychoanalytic Understanding of the MindSigmund FreudHow to Interpret: Models of Psychoanalytic InterpretationFrom the Interpretation of Dreams to the Interpretation of LiteratureHow to Interpret: Further Psychoanalytic ExamplesJacques LacanHow to Interpret: A Lacanian Example6. Feminism What Is Feminism?Early Feminist CriticismSex and GenderFeminismsHow to Interpret: Feminist ExamplesFeminism and Visual PleasureIntersectionality and the Interdisciplinary Ethos of Contemporary Feminism7. Queer Studies Key Concepts in Queer StudiesHow to Interpret: A Queer Studies ExampleQueer Studies and HistoryOuting: Writers, Characters, and the Literary ClosetHomosociality and Homosexual PanicQueer of Color CritiqueHow to Interpret: Another Queer Studies ExampleQuestions that Queer Studies Critics Ask8. Marxism Key Concepts in MarxismLukács, Gramsci, and Marxist Interpretations of CultureContemporary Marxism, Ideology, and AgencyHow to Interpret: An Example from Popular CultureHow to Interpret: Further Marxist Examples9. Historicism and Cultural Studies New HistoricismHow to Interpret: Historicist ExamplesMichel FoucaultCultural StudiesHow to Interpret: A Cultural Studies ExampleCultural Studies, Historicism, and Literature10. Postcolonial and Race Studies PostcolonialismFrom Orientalism to Deconstruction: Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Chakravorty SpivakHow to Interpret: A Postcolonial Studies ExampleRace StudiesHow to Interpret: Postcolonial and Race Studies ExamplesPostcolonial and Race Studies and Literary Studies11. Reader Response Ideal, Implied, and Actual ReadersStructuralist Models of Reading and CommunicationAesthetic Judgment, Interpretive Communities, and Resisting ReadersReception Theory and Reception HistoryReaders and the New Technologies12. Recent and Emerging Developments: Ecocriticism and Disability Studies Ecocriticism and Environmental CriticismDisability StudiesA Future for Critical TheoryWorks CitedPhotographic CreditsIndex

How To Interpret Literature

Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies

Third Edition

Robert Dale Parker

Author Information

Robert Dale Parker is James M. Benson Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

How To Interpret Literature

Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies

Third Edition

Robert Dale Parker

Reviews and Awards

"How to Interpret Literature takes on an immense and formidable task--presenting to students the corpus of twentieth-century literary theory and its differing schools, conflicts, and developments--and it succeeds with a minimum of fuss, grandstanding, ponderousness at synthesizing all of this in one handy volume. Parker's sensitive, responsive, measured, ethically minded, and dazzlingly well-informed approach makes theory lucid, accessible, and inviting while also acknowledging that it is an irreducibly complex, simultaneously graspable intellectual project that demands a lifetime's worth of repeated inquiry."--David Greven, University of South Carolina

"How to Interpret Literature is a clearly written and accessible guide to critical theory for students of English Studies. In this book students will find a friendly and readable guide to complex and often intimidating theoretical concepts."--Richard Zumkhawala-Cook, Shippensburg University