Literature in the Modern World: Critical Essays and Documents

by Dennis Walder

This text offers a unique combination of English, European, American and Post-Colonial perspectives on literary study from the 1920s to the present day. Carefully introduced and arranged to highlight the development of debates, it is designed to engage newcomers to the field with some of the main themes and issues that will concern them as readers of modern literary texts of all genres. In the second edition, there is an increased focus on questions of gender and identity and on recent debates, such as "Literature and Nation" and "Literature and Value." The reach and relevance of the book has been extended, including more writers and critics from the world beyond Europe.

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

552 pages, Paperback

First published January 17, 1991

Reviews

[David Galloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great collection of literary criticism essays arranged by each critical school. This was required for my L4 Critical Theory course at Uni. Here are the essays from which I was greatly impacted in one way or another:

Terry Eagleton - Literature and the Rise of English
Stanley Fish - Interpreting the Variorum
Robert Scholes - Who Cares About the Text (a rebuke of Fish)
Geoffrey Hartman - The Interpreter's Freud
Seymour Chatman - Story and Narrative
Umberto Eco - Semiotics of Theatrical Performance
Terry Eagleton - Marxist Criticism
Pierre Macherey - The Text Says What it Does Not Say
Roland Barthes - The Death of the Author (one of the most controversial essays in the humanities)
Simone de Beauvoir - Woman and the Other
Helene Cixous - The Laugh of the Medusa
Edward Said - The Discourse of the Orient
Seamus Heaney - Englands of the Mind
T.S. Eliot - What is a Classic?

Along with Rifkin & Ryan's 'Literary Theory: An Anthology' the budding theorist would have the bulk of a decent library with two volumes.