A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (5th …

1 Reader s Guide to Contemporary Literary TheoryRAMAN SELDENPETER WIDDOWSONPETER BROOKERF ifth editionA Reader s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theoryis a classic introduction to the ever-evolvingfield of modern Literary Theory , now expanded and updated in its fifth edition. This book presentsthe full range of positions and movements in Contemporary Literary Theory . It organises thetheories into clearly defined sections and presents them in an accessible and lucid style. Students are introduced, through succinct but incisive expositions, to New Criticism, Reader-Response Theory , Marxist Criticism, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Post-Modernism andFeminism, as well as to Cultural Materialism and New Historicism, Postcolonialism and Gay,Lesbian and Queer Theory .

2 This new edition also considers the New Aestheticism and engages with the idea of Post- Theory .This comprehensive book also contains extensively revised Further Reading lists, including web and electronic resources, and two appendices which recommend glossaries of key theoretical andcritical terms and relevant journals. Raman Seldenis late Professor of English at the University of Widdowsonis Professor of Literary Studies at the University of Gloucestershire. His mostrecent books include: Literature(1999); The Palgrave Guide to English Literature and its Contexts1500 2000(2004) and Graham Swift(2005). Peter Brookeris Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham.

3 He isthe author most recently of Modernity and Metropolis. Literature, Film and Urban Formations(2002); Bohemia in London. The Social Scene of Early Modernism(2004); and A Glossary ofCultural Theory (second edition, 2002). He is co-editor of Geographies of Modernism (2005) and co-founder of The Modernist Magazines Project .A Reader s Guide to Contemporary Literary TheoryRAMAN SELDENPETER WIDDOWSONPETER BROOKERF ifth editionThe best of the many guides to Literary Theory that are currently available. Widdowsonand Brooker chart a clear and comprehensively documented path through the full rangeof what is best in Contemporary Literary for all students of impressive achievement!

4 John Drakakis, Stirling UniversityThis Guide is as stimulating and instructive an introduction to [ Literary Theory ] as any reader might wish Kenny, Centre for the Study of Human Settlement and Historical Change, National University of Ireland, Galway A Reader s Guide to Contemporary Literary TheoryFifth editionSELDEN, WIDDOWSON, BROOKERC over image: Norwich, 1999 by Sir Howard Hodgkin Howard HodgkinDigital Image Tate, London 20050582894107_cvr 22/2/05 2:21 PM Page Reader s Guide to Contemporary Literary 9/20/07 10:44 AM Page 9/20/07 10:44 AM Page Reader s Guideto ContemporaryLiterary TheoryFIFTH EDITIONR aman SeldenPeter WiddowsonPeter 9/20/07 10:44 AM Page EDUCATION LIMITEDE dinburgh GateHarlow CM20 2 JEUnited KingdomTel: +44 (0)1279 623623 Fax: +44 (0)1279 431059 Website: edition published in Great Britain in 2005 Prentice Hall Europe 1985, 1997 Pearson Education Limited 2005 The rights of Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson and Peter Brooker to be identified as authorsof this work has been asserted in accordancewith the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

5 978-0-582-89410-5 British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British LibraryLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataSelden, reader s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory / Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson,Peter Brooker. 5th bibliographical references and 0-582-89410-7 (pbk.)1. Criticism History 20th century. I. Widdowson, Peter. II. Brooker, Peter. III. 2005801'.95'0904 dc222004063377 All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, storedin a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without either the priorwritten permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copyingin the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd,Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

6 This book may not be lent,resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any formof binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without theprior consent of the 08 07 Set in 9 Stone Serif by 35 Printed and bound in Malaysia, PJBThe Publishers policy is to use paper manufactured from sustainable 9/20/07 10:44 AM Page memory of Raman Selden, as 9/20/07 10:44 AM Page 9/20/07 10:44 AM Page to the Fifth EditionixIntroduction11 New Criticism, moral formalism and F. R. Leavis15 Origins: Eliot, Richards, Empson 15 The American New Critics 18 Moral formalism: F. R. Leavis 232 Russian formalism and the Bakhtin School 29 Shklovsky, Mukar ovsky , Jakobson 30 The Bakhtin School 393 Reader-oriented theories 45 Phenomenology: Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer 49 Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser 50 Fish, Riffaterre, Bleich 554 Structuralist theories62 The linguistic background 63 Structuralist narratology 67 Metaphor and metonymy 72 Structuralist poetics 755 Marxist theories82 Soviet Socialist Realism 84 Luk cs and Brecht 86 The Frankfurt School and After: Adorno and Benjamin 91 Structuralist Marxism: Goldmann, Althusser, Macherey 95 New Left Marxism: Williams, Eagleton, Jameson 9/20/07 10.

7 44 AM Page theories115 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 1297 Poststructuralist theories144 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 1808 Postmodernist theories197 Jean Baudrillard 200 Jean-Fran ois Lyotard 203 Postmodernism and Marxism 206 Postmodern feminisms 2099 Postcolonialist theories218 Edward Said 220 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 223 Homi K.

8 Bhabha 226 Race and ethnicity 22910 Gay, lesbian and queer theories243 Gay Theory and criticism 244 Lesbian feminist Theory and criticism 247 Queer Theory and criticism 252 Conclusion: Post-Theory267 Appendix 1: Recommended glossaries of theoretical and critical terms and concepts280 Appendix 2: Literary , critical and cultural Theory journals 282 Index of names, titles and 9/20/07 10:44 AM Page to the Fifth Editionaman Selden s original A Reader s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (1985) now appears in a new fifth edition. Somelittle while after revising the second edition in 1989, Raman prematurelyand tragically died of a brain tumour.

9 He was much loved and highlyrespected not least for the remarkable achievement of producing a short,clear, informative and unpolemical volume on a diverse and difficult subject. A third edition appeared in 1993, brought up-to-date by PeterWiddowson, and in 1997 he was joined by Peter Brooker in an extensivereworking of the fourth edition (debts to other advisers who assisted themon those occasions are acknowledged in previous Prefaces). Now, in 2005,and as witness to its continuing success and popularity, the moment forfurther revision ofA Reader s Guidehas arrived once years is a long time in Contemporary Literary Theory , and theterrain, not surprisingly, has undergone substantial change since RamanSelden first traversed it.

10 As early as the third edition, it was noted that, inthe nature of things, the volume was beginning to have two rather moreclearly identifiable functions than it had when the project was earlier chapters were taking on a historical cast in outlining movementsfrom which newer developments had received their impetus but had thensuperseded, while the later ones attempted to take stock of precisely thosenewer developments, to mark out the coordinates of where we live and practise Theory and criticism now. This tendency was strengthened in thereordering and restructuring of the fourth edition, and the present versioncontinues to reflect it, so that the last five chapters including a new con-cluding one on what it might mean to be Post- Theory now comprisehalf the book.