Literary Theory

Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature.[1] However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social prophecy, and other interdisciplinary themes which are of relevance to the way humans interpret meaning. In humanities in modern academia, the latter style of scholarship is an outgrowth of critical theory and is often called simply "theory." As a consequence, t ...more

Literary Theory: An Introduction
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction
Poetics
Mythologies
The Pleasure of the Text
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory
Anatomy of Criticism
The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays
S/Z: An Essay
The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
How to Read Literature
Aspects of the Novel
How Fiction Works
The Theory of the Novel
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John CluteArchaeologies of the Future by Fredric JamesonCritical Theory and Science Fiction by Carl Howard FreedmanThe Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of by Thomas M. DischThe Seven Beauties of Science Fiction by Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr.
Science Fiction Criticism
134 books — 21 voters
The Apparitional Lesbian by Terry CastleThe Safe Sea of Women by Bonnie ZimmermanChloe Plus Olivia by Lillian FadermanLesbian Texts and Contexts by Karla JaySurpassing the Love of Men by Lillian Faderman
Lesbian Literary Criticism
51 books — 6 voters

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien by J.R.R. TolkienThe Road to Middle-Earth by Tom ShippeyJ.R.R. Tolkien by Tom ShippeyThe Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays by J.R.R. TolkienJ.R.R. Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter
Tolkienology
75 books — 38 voters

Tzvetan Todorov
When the critic has said everything in his power about a literary text, he has still said nothing; for the very existence of literature implies that it cannot be replaced by non-literature
TODOROV TZVETAN

Northrop Frye
The genuine artist, Harris is saying, finds reality in a point of identity between subject and object, a point at which the created world and the world that is really there become the same thing. [p.211]
Northrop Frye, The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination

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