Teoria literatury

Very Short Introductions #004

by Jonathan D. Culler

Błyskotliwa, przejrzyście napisana książka profesora literatury angielskiej i komparatystyki literackiej na Cornell University, autora prac "On Deconstruction" i "The Pursuit of Signs" stanowi prezentację podstawowych problemów współczesnej teorii literatury, rozpatrywanych na szerszym tle zagadnień filozofii, badań nad kulturą, językoznawstwa, poetyki. Nie cofając się przed stawianiem elementarnych, pozornie naiwnych pytań (co to jest teoria?, czym jest literatura?), autor porządkuje rozważany materiał w oparciu o główne wątki problemowe.

Uzupełniający zasadniczy tekst "Dodatek" przynosi zwięzłe i kompetentne charakterystyki najnowszych nurtów refleksji teoretycznoliterackiej, takich jak strukturalizm, fenomenologia, dekonstrukcja, psychoanaliza, nowy historyzm, teorie feministyczne.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Philosophy, Theory, Literature, Criticism, Academic

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Culler's Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature won the James Russell Lowell Prize from the Modern Language Association of America in 1976 for an outstanding book of criticism. Structuralist Poetics was one of the first introductions to the French structuralist movement available in English.

Culler’s contribution to the Very Short Introductions series, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, received praise for its innovative technique of organization. Instead of chapters to schools and their methods, the book's eight chapters address issues and problems of literary theory.

In The Literary in Theory (2007) Culler discusses the notion of Theory and literary history’s role in the larger realm of literary and cultural theory. He defines Theory as an interdisciplinary body of work including structuralist linguistics, anthropology, Marxism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

La Rochefoucault said that no one would ever have thought of being in love if they hadn’t read about it in books. I don’t believe that, do you?

No. Not true at all.

But that’s not what we’re here to discuss.

So -, it’s been said before and I’ll say it again

LITERARY THEORY – huuuagh! What is it good for? Absolutely nuthin.

Theory is a body of thinking and writing whose limits are exceedingly hard to define.

Theory is works that succeed in challenging and reorienting thinking in fields other than those to which they apparently belong

Theory is an unbounded group of writings about everything under the sun.

Theory disputes the notion of “common sense”. It’s engaged in the unsettling of anything that might have been taken for granted, it’s reflexive, thinking about thinking, an enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things

Theory is intimidating (p15)

One of the most dismaying features of theory today is that it is endless. It is not something you could ever master

Typical conversational gambit suggested by Jonathan Culler:

“How can you write about the Victorian novel without using Foucault’s account of the deployment of sexuality and the hysterization of women’s bodies and Gayatri Spivak’s demonstration of the role of colonialism in the construction of the metropolitan subject?”

Don’t say –“Oh, you’re so right – I’ve been such a fool.”

Instead, try – “Spivak? But haven’t you read Benita Parry’s demolition of her categories and her fundamentally flawed response?”

A good deal of the hostility to theory no doubt comes from the fact that to admit the importance of theory is to make an open-ended commitment… Theory makes you desire mastery…but theory makes mastery impossible…because theory is itself the questioning of presumed results and the assumptions on which they are based.

This is notably strange in an introduction to an academic subject (although I have seen stranger) since :

1) The author is admitting that there is quite a bit of hostility expressed by some towards his discipline

2) He’s admitting that his discipline is impossibly large and forbiddingly arcane

3) What he’s describing is “theory” and not “literary theory. It doesn’t become “literary” until it’s applied to literature. But then - what is literature? who says so? Why is it worth studying any more than soap opera? (Answer to this last – many think that it isn’t.)

So the idea is that these various (often French) theorists, who were writing about all kinds of issues, psychotherapy, semiology, linguistics, sexuality, prisons, Aids, wrestlers, whatever, began to be used to create a new trendy edgy academic subject called Cultural Studies which sprang up in the 1970s and took hold in universities in the 1980s. Like Steerpike in the castle of Gormenghast, cultural studies decided it was the right discipline to rule the liberal arts and so began to make a subtle, insidious take-over of the English departments, by smuggling cultural-studies ideas into the curriculum, where their ivy tendrils grew wildly and began to choke the host. Pity the appalled English professor as sturdy vines of Derrida begin to twine round his calves.

The idea of studying literature is not old. The faculty of English literature at Oxford University was only established in 1894. There is a theory, to which I subscribe, that literature, at that time, had become imbued with a special significance. The precipitous decline of Christian belief amongst the English middle class in the 19th century, at the very time the Empire was reaching its apogee, inspired some academics to reach out for a substitute religion, some system whereby the cultural values which made Britain “great” could be located. They figured these values were to be found in literature. Liberal humanist values could be celebrated and transmitted to the generations through the study of the best writers. A national literature helped to form a national consciousness and a set of values which could then be broadcast to the subjects of the Empire. Terry Eagleton summed this line of thinking up by saying that this was throwing a few novels to the workers to stop them throwing up a few barricades. So this is the giant enterprise that the theorists have come to interrogate. And they treat it like the scene of a crime.




Theorist Sarah Lund : So, we have the results from the laboratory.

Theorist Jan Meyer : Did you get all of it?

Lund : Yes, we bagged everything. It took all Wednesday and most of Thursday.

Meyer: What, all of Western literature? All of it?

Lund : Well, I think we did. You can go and check again. There was a lot of it. We had to get a truck. I don’t think the department will like the expenses but it can’t be helped.

Meyer : So what do they say?

Lund (reading from computer print out) : 78% sexism of which 49% overt; 68% racist of which 17% overt; 39% homophobic, all overt; pretty much all of it was contaminated one way or another.

Meyer: Was anything left after all these tests?

Lund : The Little Prince. That one was okay.

Some of these theorists as usual like to come up with jawbreaking neologisms like the hyper-protected cooperative principle (p26) - actually, they all do, – and some of these ideas are fairly straightforward when you get hold of them, e.g.

INTERTEXTUALITY (AARGH, NO, GET OFF ME!)

The idea is that novels are actually about other previous novels, films are about other films and the act of film-making, poems are about poetry and poems. At first this does sound like one of those awful critical life-denying ideas – what? Novels are about novels? But I want them to be about life, love, politics, the world, stuff! Reality! Not other bloody novels! But you know, as well as being about stuff, novels etc are about – i.e. are in response to, bounce off, react strongly to, are in opposition to, are a love letter to previous novels just as

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

is Shakespeare sending up previous platitudinous clichéd love poems, and



a bumper-sticker – is pretty meaningless unless you know your previous bumper stickers, like SAVE THE WHALE, NO NUKES and GAY JESUS SAVES.

So yes, intertextuality is TRUE. Grr. That's just one example - amongs many. Oh yes, many.

This is a rocking little introduction to a formidable subject. Recommended to SOME of you!

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Endangered Theory!

Culler sets out trying to define literature and theory, but soon degenerates into a comparison of literary studies and culture studies. In fact except for Foucault and Derrida no literary theorists are given more than a couple of paragraphs worth of space. Towards the close we are introduced to a type of ‘theory’ and shown how it developed over time, to give a flavor of how theories evolve by transforming themselves. This was an interesting exercise. And it ends with what I felt was a very poignant message:

A Theory can only, at best, be a tool.

Theory provides no answers, no final way of looking at literature, only avenues for thinking.

Theory, then, offers not a set of solutions but the prospect of further thought. It calls for commitment to the work of reading, of challenging presuppositions, of questioning the assumptions on which you proceed. I began by saying that theory was endless – an unbounded corpus of challenging and fascinating writings – but not just more writings: it is also an ongoing project of thinking which does not end when a very short introduction ends.

But of course, after the VSI ends, we are left with the uncomfortable fact that it did not really introduce what it was supposed to! So we have a ten page appendix in which some of the major ‘schools’ are quickly presented in short half page summaries. It was almost funny.

All in all, a pretty loose book — the author is worried for the field of literary theory and spends his time sharing his concerns with us.

Now, this could work. After all “xxx religion in danger!” is always an effective rallying cry.

So “Literary studies in danger!” might well be a great introductory war cry too!

[Rosemary Atwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A creative and individual approach to a somewhat daunting subject with excellent references and recommended reading for further study. Like the ‘History’ volume which I read a few years ago, ‘Literary Theory’ examines the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how’ before building on its purpose and relevance.

[Aerin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never taken any literature classes beyond the high-school level, and this book reminded me why.

I mean, it's well-written and informative. But ugh.

[Mattia Ravasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three Very Short Introductions to Literary Criticism

Derrida, Althusser and Foucault don't get any clearer than this.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was my first in the "Very Short Introduction" series, and I picked one in a field where I had a little bit of background. Where I went to college it was impossible to take a humanities class and not have someone mention Foucault or Althusser. The school newspaper once ran an article "The Next Person Who Says 'Derrida' Gets Dropkicked". Reading this book, I couldn't help but wish I had it back then, for while every professor loved to spout critical theory, the acting assumption was that everyone in the class knew what they were talking about, and as a freshman from the Midwest, I most certainly did not. While I eventually toiled to form a solid framework about these ideas, it was never quite as elegantly structured and argot-free as what Culler puts down here.

The book clearly has its limits -- as it claims: it is merely an introduction causing it to give only a cursory overview of even the biggest name's in the field. Also, it's ten years old, and I'm sure that causes it to miss some of the major things happening in academia at the moment.

Lastly, while a minor point, my blood boiled and cartoon-esque steam shot from my ears when I read "A good deal of the hostility to [literary:] theory no doubt comes from the fact that to admit the importance of theory is to make an open-ended commitment, to leave yourself in a position where there are always important things you don't know." Certainly this feeling of always being behind on the latest paper in your field is a condition of academia in general. I can think of a panoply of alternate reasons why there is hostility to literary theory: writing that prefers to obfuscate rather than clarify (Jameson), a total lack of rigor (the Sokal hoax), and a frustrating combination of advancing an epistemology that undercuts any claims that they are working towards something "real" while simultaneously positioning their work on the highest of moral ground (Marcuse). I'd appreciate it if Culler didn't make it seem like the reason I never stuck with critical theory was simply laziness on my part.

Rant aside, if you ever find yourself in intellectual settings where Foucault is getting name checked and you don't know what they are saying, get this book.

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 5 out of 5]

Εξαιρετική εισαγωγή στα περί λογοτεχνικής θεωρίας.

[Jihm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Take it in increments. It covers the broadest topics of literary theory in a very thorough treatment that makes it cumbersome at times. Wisely, the author chose to write short chapters. I could see turning to this book to gather launch points for future literature papers.

However, the author seems to have the wrong audience in mind. The vocabulary and sentence structure is rather stilted and the prose reads more like a philosophical treatise than an introductory text. Had I been a freshman in an English program at the time of reading this book, I would not have found it very helpful at all. A text that covers the fundamentals of a discipline should be written in the interest of clear presentation and not be a showcase of erudition.

[Karl Steel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved that Culler organized the work thematically rather than by critical schools. Given that many of the best theorists overlap in many fields--is Judith Butler a psychoanalyst or feminist? is Althusser a structuralist or Marxist? and what is Foucault?--I think Culler's approach best represents how theory actually works. After all, poststructuralism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis tend to do much the same thing in a theoretical context: they all call 'the natural' (of language, of the state and economics, of the personality) into question and thereby transform the self into subject. That denaturalization is the key difference from what came before, not the differences between, say, a politically informed and a merely linguistic poststructuralism.

Moreover, even though it originally appeared about 10 years ago, its refusal to split theory into various schools preserved it from obsolescence. The pure Lacanian died out in 1999 or so, and now the best critics draw on everything.

Highly recommended. This is probably the one I'll assign.

[Bibliomantic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among the Very Short Introductions, I count this one as one of the best entries. It’s nice to see Jonathan Culler take the task seriously, and not merely as an excuse to write an essay on a select area of the subject (Catriona Kelly’s ‘Russian Literature’ entry comes to mind), but to actually put together an engaging overview of the field’s major themes and divisions. Culler is obviously very comfortable with the topic, and it reads in the way that makes me think his lectures (at Cornell, from what I gather at Wiki) are a pleasure to attend. In any case, some of the book’s strengths are in answering questions that I’ve always meant to ask. Why does literary theory seem to be based so little on things that have to do with literature directly? Why is it more ‘theory’ than ‘literary theory’? Why is Saussure so elemental? How did all of this evolve from Russian formalism to post-structuralism and beyond? Culler gives good brief answers without oversimplifying the arguments to accommodate the book’s length. Although there are many longer and more specific studies, Culler’s volume inspires further reading while at the same time giving us that which so many such introductions fail to give, mainly, the urge to tell those who are interested: if you want to read just one book on the topic, read this one.

[Amine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite the bird's eye view.
I really appreciated the beginning of this book: what is theory? What is literature? What is the relationship between literary theory and cultural studies?
The chapters of this book all take on important intriguing topics in relation to literary theory, introducing many aspects at once as well as many thinkers and ideas anyone should be aware of.

I preferred the method employed here to simply presenting schools and movements (which was what I expected).
This works as an excellent introduction.

If you want to know what literary studies are about, why you should care, give this one a shot.

[Amin · Rating 2 out of 5]

مقدمه
کتاب همانطور که از اسم روی جلدش مشخص است ((معرفی مختصر))ی است برای نظریه ادبی و مباحث آن که نتوانسته رسالت خود را به خوبی انجام دهد.

کتاب
مثل تمام کتب تئوری ادبیات دیگر از ادبیات چیست؟؟نظریه چیست؟؟ و...میپردازد و به مباحثی مثل زبان،بوطیقا،روایت و...خیلی خلاصه و نامفهموم میپردازه که به نظر من یکم واضح تر توضیح میداد بهتر میشد،چون مثلا مبحث زبان رو خیلی خلاصه و سربسته توضیح میده و به یک صفحه در مورد زبان سوسور بسنده میکنه که ظلم بزرگی است در حق سوسور!!

وقتی کتاب را تمام کردم با خود فکر کردم که یک بار دیگر بخوانم ولی چون خیلی خلاصه بود،به دوباره خواندنش نمی ارزید و باید کتب کامل تری خواند.
شاید این کتاب محرک و معرفی مختصری برای علاقه مندان به تئوری ادبیات باشه،ولی برای من چنین نبود.

[Adelina Traicu · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Este literatura ca o buruiană?'

[Katia N · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've recently discovered Oxford's "A Very Short Introduction" books and find them very helpful and really well written. That is assuming one does not know much about the subject of course.

This one is particularly enjoyable. It starts with discussing what is the theory within the context of humanities; moves towards the overlap between the literary theory and the cultural studies; talks a bit about the linguistics within the context of literature and then moves on towards the types of the literary analysis. It reads like a literary detective!

But two warnings:
1) understandably, people who know a lot in those areas or have some preconceptions about the subject might not find it informative;
2) if you do not like reading about the post-structuralism (and yes lots, of French names here), you might not enjoy it as much as i did.

[Martyna Antonina]

Literatura nigdy nie zmieści się nam w książkach. Nigdy nie wyrysujemy za jej pomocą dystynktywnych ram. A jednak, przy uważnej obserwacji pogody i chodników, da się zauważyć cień, jaki rzuca na wszystko, co rzuca cień. I choć Culler jest w obliczu tego zjawiska jedynie zrzędliwym meteorologiem, to zrzędzi z wyrozumiałością, tak, jak zrzędzi się na niegrzeczne zwierzątka, które uciekają nie z głupoty, a z nieprzebranej dzikości.

[Jafar Isbarov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theory, then, offers not a set of solutions but the prospect of further thought. It calls for commitment to the work of reading, of challenging presuppositions, of questioning the assumptions on which you proceed.

Having read 4 books from this series, I am convinced that there is little an author can do within 100 pages to introduce a topic. Indeed, perhaps, we should not expect to get overall idea of the subject from an introductory text. The best we can hope for is a perspective, a glimpse into the field from as neutral point of view as possible.

Jonathan Culler manages to do just that, as far as I can judge with my non-existent knowledge of the Theory. And it has too beautiful and ending to spoil, for which I added an extra star.

[Kačaba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nečekala bych, že to budu muset číst dvakrát a loni mě po dočtení vlastně ani nenapadlo, že by mě něco takového mohlo i bavit. Ale jo. Asi se můj pohled změnil. Cullerova kniha je totiž dobře napsaná, čtivá a vlastně i velmi zajímavá.

[Setayesh Dashti · Rating 5 out of 5]

دور دوم خوندنِ این کتابِ بسیار عالی هم تموم شد.
درسته که ترجمه‌ش بسیار بده، ولی بسیار کتاب خوبیه برای آشنایی با تئوری. فقط باید مطالب فصل اول کتاب، آشنایی با تئوری کاملاً توی ذهن تبیین بشه که ربط مباحث دیگۀ کتاب با تئوری ادبی مشخص بشه. یه جاهایی به نظرم این طبقه‌بندی مشکل داشت و ربط مباحث مطرح‌شده به تئوری ادبی به خوبی مشخص نشده بود.
خوبی این کتاب این بود که بر خلاف کتاب‌های دیگه، صرفاً مباحث خوانش متن رو مطرح نکرده بود و هر چیزی رو که به تئوری ادبی مربوط بود بیان کرده بود. به نظر من تئوری صرفاً مباحث خوانش متن و فرمالیسم و ... نیست و کاملاً از تاریخ تا جامعه‌شناسی رو همون طور که توی این کتاب بیان شده بود در بر می‌گیره. هرچیزی که بعنوان یک نظریۀ غیر ادبی در ادبیات به کار بره. تو این کتاب مطالعات فرهنگی، روانشناسی، روایت‌شناسی، تاریخ، فلسفه و ... بعنوان نظریه‌های ادبی بیان شده بود و به نظرم عالی بود و جای کتاب‌هایی از این دست توی بحث تئوری ادبی کمه.
و آشنایی اولیه‌ای که از تئوری می‌ده بسیار بسیار عالیست. خصوصاً وقتی می‌گه تئوری یعنی خوندن متن و متن و متن و متن و یاد گرفتنِ نامتناهی. دقیقاً چیزی که من خیلی می‌پسندم.
بطور کل بسیار کتاب خوب و لازمیه برای آشنایی با نظریۀ ادبی. من بعنوان هندبوک فک کنم خیلی ازش استفاده کنم.
بعداًها فرصت شد با ترجمۀ دیگه‌ش تطبیق می‌دمش برای خودم.
والسلام.

[Biggles · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to know whether this book is a comprehensive introduction to literary theory, as it's the first whole book I've read on the subject. My motivation was to better understand the literary theoretic ideas being used in software studies and game studies papers I read. Besides that, I always enjoyed English lit at school and I figured it would be nice to say hi again.

The book has its flaws, including indulging in the pompous habit (with which I had already become familiar) of placing literary theory at the centre of everything, referring to it simply as Theory, and declaring it without bounds. Nevertheless, I got what I wanted from it. I now have a stronger conceptual base from which to understand various things as text, and I better understand how scholars with a more similar background to Culler's than mine might approach problems.

The careful and informed reader will make excellent use of this well-written book, which contains many useful examples. It serves its purpose, so I find it hard to fault it significantly.

[Ehsan Javid · Rating 3 out of 5]

"پیدا نکردم"

آن چیزی که در این کتاب به دنبالش بودم را ، پیدا نکردم. شاید اگر عنوان کتاب چیز دیگری بود ، به این زودی ها به سراغش نمی آمدم
نویسنده سعی بر آن داشت که نظریه را با مطرح کردن مباحث و جدلها معرفی کند.(شاید کمتر از 20 درصد ، تلاشش موفقیت آمیز بود).او بیشتر بدنبال یک نوآوری در شناساندن مباحث نظریه بود اما آنقدر گستردگی وجود دارد که نویسنده نیز در ابتدای کتاب عجز خودش را بیان میکند .
در متن کتاب یک گنگی و پراکندگی وجود دارد که نمی شود همه ی آن را برگردن نویسنده انداخت. مترجم هم احتمالا ب�� تقصیر نباشد


***

[مهسا · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. What is Theory? 8/10
2. What is Literature and Does it Matter? 9/10
3. Literature and Cultural Studies 6/10
4. Language, Meaning, and Interpretation 7/10
5. Rhetoric, Poetics, and Poetry 7/10
6. Narrative 8/10
7. Performative Language 8/10
8. Identity, Identification, and the Subject 5/10
9. Theoretical Schools and Movements 5/10

[Oier Quincoces · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro que resume muchas de las cuestiones más debatidas de la teoría literaria. Me gusta, además, que plantee interrogantes sobre aspectos de la literatura que o bien damos por hecho o bien no habíamos pensado de esa manera. Recomendable.

[adela · Rating 2 out of 5]

no hate, but i had to read for school

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those rare, really excellent primers, that get you fired up for the subject; highly recommended reading/listening! In particular loved the nuts-and-bolts approach by the author, who does not fall for the one-literary-school/discipline-after-another approach but really gets down to the issues the informed reader encounters when engaging the field of literary theory. Or as the author put it: "To interpret a work is to tell a story of reading."

"The genre of ‘theory’ includes works of anthropology, art history, film studies, gender studies, linguistics, philosophy, political theory, psychoanalysis, science studies, social and intellectual history, and sociology. The works in question are tied to arguments in these fields, but they become ‘theory’ because their visions or arguments have been suggestive or productive for people who are not studying those disciplines. Works that become ‘theory’ offer accounts others can use about meaning, nature, and culture, the functioning of the psyche, the relations of public to private experience and of larger historical forces to individual experience."

"Theory is often a pugnacious critique of common-sense notions, and further, an attempt to show that what we take for granted as ‘common sense’ is in fact an historical construction, a particular theory that has come to seem so natural to us that we don’t even see it as a theory. As a critique of common sense and exploration of alternative conceptions, theory involves a questioning of the most basic premisses or assumptions of literary study, the unsettling of anything that might have been taken for granted: What is meaning? What is an author? What is it to read? What is the ‘I’ or subject who writes, reads, or acts? How do texts relate to the circumstances in which they are produced?"

"So what is theory? Four main points have emerged. 1.  Theory is interdisciplinary – discourse with effects outside an original discipline. 2.  Theory is analytical and speculative – an attempt to work out what is involved in what we call sex or language or writing or meaning or the subject. 3.  Theory is a critique of common sense, of concepts taken as natural. 4.  Theory is reflexive, thinking about thinking, enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things, in literature and in other discursive practices."

"The idea of literary competence focuses attention on the implicit knowledge that readers (and writers) bring to their encounters with texts: what sort of procedures do readers follow in responding to works as they do? What sort of assumptions must be in place to account for their reactions and interpretations? Thinking about readers and the way they make sense of literature has led to what has been called ‘reader-response criticism’, which claims that the meaning of the text is the experience of the reader (an experience that includes hesitations, conjectures, and self-corrections). If a literary work is conceived as a succession of actions upon the understanding of a reader, then an interpretation of the work can be a story of that encounter, with its ups and downs: various conventions or expectations are brought into play, connections are posited, and expectations defeated or confirmed. To interpret a work is to tell a story of reading."

"Accounts of hermeneutics frequently distinguish a hermeneutics of recovery, which seeks to reconstruct the original context of production (the circumstances and intentions of the author and the meanings a text might have had for its original readers), from a hermeneutics of suspicion, which seeks to expose the unexamined assumptions on which a text may rely (political, sexual, philosophical, linguistic)."

[Nattapan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is interesting, but might be quite difficult to comprehend, especially for someone (including me) who has never learned or had any experience in literary criticism before.

"...เมื่อนวนิยายมอบความเป็นไปได้ที่จะตระหนักรู้เกี่ยวกับผู้อื่นอย่างสมบูรณ์แบบ มันได้ชดเชยความเขลาและมืดบอดที่เรามีต่อผู้อื่นในชีวิต "จริง" ..." (อี. เอ็ม. ฟอร์สเตอร์, สุนันทา วรรณสินธ์ เบล (แปล), ทฤษฎีวรรณคดี, น. 161)

[Aino]

Joo hei kiitti kerttu ideasta, luin tätä tuskallisesti eilen yheltätoista illalla ni paree saada ees jotain hyötyä tästä, jos ei hyötyä kokeessa saa

[Florence Ivy · Rating 3 out of 5]

i’ve FINALLY finished it !!

[nizar · Rating 4 out of 5]

tan de bo haver-lo llegit a primer pq és una molt bona introducció de què redimonis és la teoria

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literary theory can be daunting for a person who's never studied "theory." Culler makes that point early on in this little gem of a book. Literary, witty, and insightful, this short tome takes the sting out of modern literary theory without sparing the reader the promised introduction to it. Literary theory is quite complex, and Culler acknowledges that it drives some readers away. The mistake is to think that it also in some way casts a shadow over literature itself.

There's a lot packed into this small book. It offers a definition—guarded—of what literature is before discussing meaning, poetry, prose, rhetoric, performative aspects, and even ethics. It is a non-threatening introduction for those who find structuralism, deconstructionism, and post-modernism off putting. Aware of the necessity of such treatments, Culler points out that not any one method is an attempt to be "the" method. Meaning isn't so easily pinned down as that. These are angles of approach to something that borders on the sacred.

My thoughts here Sects and Violence in the Ancient World concur. I'm no fan of technical approaches to literature—they often seem to mar the appearance of what is naturally beautiful. Reading this book, however, will show why such approaches exist and what we might learn from them.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oxford University Press did an interesting thing with these tiny books that introduce intrepid readers to a variety of any possible subject: from The European Union to Molecules to Jazz to Mandela; the idea being to enlighten the future Jack-of-all-trades to an introductory lesson in any given discipline. I cannot vouch for the others, but the book here on Literary Theory is very user unfriendly, and does not offer a perspective into the discourse that an average reader could appreciate.

I have a graduate degree in Literary Theory and still found the text taxing and a bore. There are much better books out there that introduce the theories herein and do so without the air of pretentiousness that makes Literary Theory so odious that most would rather...just watch the movie.

For example: Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today. That's a great one. This...thank God it was little.