Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader

by David Lodge (Editor), Nigel Wood

'In our era, criticism is not merely a library of secondary aids to the understanding and appreciation of literary texts, but also a rapidly expanding body of knowledge in its own right.' (David Lodge)

This new edition of David Lodge's Modern Criticism and Theory is fully revised and expanded to take account of the developments of theoretical and general interest in contemporary literary criticism since publication of the first edition in 1988.

Building on the strengths of the first edition, the volume is designed to introduce the reader to the guiding concepts of present literary and cultural debate by presenting substantial extracts from the period's most seminal thinkers.

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

552 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

David John Lodge was an English author and critic. A literature professor at the University of Birmingham until 1987, some of his novels satirise academic life, notably the "Campus Trilogy" – Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) and Nice Work (1988). The second two were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Another theme is Roman Catholicism, beginning from his first published novel The Picturegoers (1960). Lodge also wrote television screenplays and three stage plays. After retiring, he continued to publish literary criticism. His edition of Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (1972) includes essays on 20th-century writers such as T.S. Eliot. In 1992, he published The Art of Fiction, a collection of essays on literary techniques with illustrative examples from great authors, such as Point of View (Henry James), The Stream of Consciousness (Virginia Woolf) and Interior Monologue (James Joyce), beginning with Beginning and ending with Ending.

Reviews

[Alok Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to have a first-hand understanding of the jargon that modern literary theories seem? Well, this compilation by Lodge is the ultimate thing that you will be needing. You should have this book as your reader, with translated texts and original ones as well. Understand the source and then you will better understand the resource.

[Stela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of the chapters in this book are mandatory readings for any student of Letters. A reference book.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had to be limited to one anthology of twentieth century literary critical theory, I would probably want this to be the one. The major approaches are represented: structuralism, formalism, phenomenology, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, feminism and Marxism. The essays include Roman Jakobson on metaphor and metonymy; Tzvetan Todorov on detective fiction; Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault on the author, Fredric Jameson on postmodernism, Umberto Eco on Casablanca.

[Delaney Curry · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the few books that unexpectedly made me cry.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took more than 5 years, but it is accomplished. Like any anthology, it's a hodge-podge of perceptive and facile, jargon and jauntiness, but it's a great state of the union for lit-crit as it existed circa 1988. If dense, pseudo-scientific examinations of linguistics applied to literature sounds remotely appealing, I'd recommend taking your time with pen in hand and merely skimming over the hacks, the self-aggrandizing and the incoherent (Lacan, Bloom, Jameson) in favor of those with wit, clarity and insight (Barthes, Showalter, Eco).

[Onur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read 'Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Preface, and The premisses of the materialist method, from The German Ideology’.

[Shirin Heidari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each chapter is as a window to the world of knowledge. Although the editors, Lodge & Wood, have applied short introduction to the critics, they named the critics' books & the books which related to them. Moreover, they've recited a part of one of the most important works of each critics.
It includes critics as
Michel Foucault, Emberto Eco, Edward Said, Spivak, Derida, Bakhtin, Ronald Barthes, Greenblatt, Raymond Williams, Saussure, Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, Frantz Fanon, Lacan, Jacobson & so on.

[Mie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read "The Object of Study" and "Nature of the Linguistic Sign" parts and it was OK. It does not inspire me to read the rest.

[unnarrator]

Because of Zadie:

http://emdashes.com/2009/03/syllabus-...