Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice

This introduction to literary theory and criticism, its historical development and the variety of theoretical positions or schools of criticism, is designed to help students take conscious, informed and intelligent choices concerning their own methods of literary interpretation. The text places literary theory and criticism in historical perspective, from Plato to Henry James. It discusses each of the eight basic schools of theoretical positions concerning literary theory and criticism separately: new criticism; reader-response criticism; structuralism; deconstruction; psychoanalytic criticism; feminism; Marxism; and new historicism. Three works of literature are included: Nathanial Hawthorne's story, "Young Goodman Brown"; Robert Browning's poem, "My Last Duchess"; and Susan Glaspell's play, "Trifles".