Texts and Contexts teaches you how to write about literature by considering how readers behave and what assumptions they might make while interacting with literary text. The authors cover literary theory as well as provide overviews of literature and examples of how to write about them.
Table of Contents:
BRIEF CONTENTS
1. An Introduction, Theoretically
2. Critical Words: A Selective Tour
3. Unifying the Work: New Criticism
4. Creating the Text: Reader-Response Criticism
5. Opening Up the Text: Structuralism and Deconstruction
6. Connecting the Text: Historical and New Historical Criticism
7. Minding the Work: Psychological Criticism
8. Gendering the Text: Feminist Criticism, Post-feminism, and Queer Theory
COMPREHENSIVE CONTENTS
1. An Introduction, Theoretically
Textual Tours
Checking Some Baggage
"Is There One Correct Interpretation of a Literary Work?"
"So, Are All Opinions About Literature Equally Valid?
Anything to Declare?
Theory Enables Practice
You Already Have a Theoretical Stance
This is an Introduction
Here's the Plan
Works Cited and Recommended Further Reading
2. Critical Worlds: A Selective Tour
Brendan Gill, from Here at "The New Yorker"
New Criticism
Reader-Response Criticism
Structuralist and Deconstructive Criticism
Historical, Postcolonial, and Cultural Studies
Psychological Criticism
Political Criticism
Other Approaches
Works Cited and Recommended Further Reading
3. Unifying the Work: New Criticism
The Purpose of New Criticism
Basic Principles Reflected
Archibald MacLeish, "Ars Poetica"
Radicals in Tweed Jackets
How to Do New Criticism
Film and Other Genres
The Writing Process: A Sample Essay
Gwendolyn Brooks, "The Mother"
Preparing to Write
Shaping
Drafting
Practicing New Criticism
Stephen Shu-ning Liu, "My Father's Martial Art"
Questions
Ben Jonson, "On My First Son"
Questions
The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Questions
Useful Terms for New Criticism
Checklist for New Criticism
Works Cited
Recommended Further Reading
4. Creating the Text: Reader-Response Criticism
The Purpose of Reader-Response Criticism
New Criticism as the Old Criticism
The Reader Emerges
Hypertextual Readers
How to Do Reader-Response Criticism
Preparing to Respond
Sandra Cisneros, "Love Poem #1"
Making Sense
Subjective Response
Receptive Response
The Writing Process: A Sample Essay
Preparing to Respond
Ernest Hemingway, A Very Short Story
Preparing to Write
Shaping
Drafting
Practicing Reader-Response Criticism
Michael Drayton, "Since There's No Help"
Questions
Judith Minty, Killing the Bear
Questions
Tom Wayman, "Did I Miss Anything?"
Questions
A. Williams "deep as space"
Questions
Useful Terms for Reader-Response Criticism
Checklist: Using Reader-Response Criticism
Works Cited
Recommended Further Reading
5. Opening Up the Text: Structuralism and Deconstruction
The Purposes of Structuralism and Deconstruction
Structuralism and Semiotics
Poststructuralism and Deconstruction
How to Do Structuralism and Deconstruction
William Butler Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium"
The Writing Process: A Sample Essay
Amy Clampitt, "Discovery"
Preparing to Write
Shaping
Drafting
Practicing Structuralist and Deconstructive Criticism
Questions
Cut through the anxiety, the unknown, the hassle . . .
William Blake, "London"
Questions
Linda Pastan, "Ethics"
Questions
John Donne, "Death Be Not Proud"
Questions
Useful Terms for Deconstruction
Checklist for Deconstruction
Works Cited
Recommended Further Reading
6. Connecting the Text: Historical and New Historical Criticism
The Purposes of Historical and New Historical Criticism
Biographical and Historical Criticism
John Milton, "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent"
Cultural Studies
New Historicism
History as Text
Marxist Criticism
Postcolonial and Ethnic Studies
How to Do Biographical and Historical Criticism
The Writing Process: Sample Essays
John Cheever, Reunion
A Biographical Essay
Preparing to Write
Shaping
Drafting
A New Historical Essay
Preparing to Write
Shaping
About the Author :
Steven Lynn is dean of the South Carolina Honors College at the University of South Carolina and Louise Fry Scudder Professor. His interests include eighteenth-century literature (especially Samuel Johnson), composition and rhetoric (especially its history), and science fiction.
