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
The Pleasure of the Text
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
Mythologies
Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory
Anatomy of Criticism
How to Read Literature
How Fiction Works
The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays
S/Z: An Essay
Aspects of the Novel
The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
The Theory of the Novel
Jealousy & In the Labyrinth by Alain Robbe-GrilletL'Année dernière à Marienbad by Jean-Louis LeutratThe Immortal One by Alain Robbe-GrilletLast Year at Marienbad by Alain Robbe-GrilletThe Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet
29 books — 2 voters
The Road to Middle-Earth by Tom ShippeyThe Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien by J.R.R. TolkienJ.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
83 books — 40 voters

Anti-Tech Revolution by Theodore John KaczynskiTechnological Slavery by Theodore John KaczynskiIndustrial Society and Its Future by Theodore John KaczynskiHuman Diversity by Charles MurrayThe Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein
Sober Provocations and Perspectives
107 books — 35 voters
Ethereal by Phillip BainbridgeSeven Beyond by Stella AtriumThe Consolation of Philosophy by BoethiusPhilosophy of Evil by Lars Fredrik Händler SvendsenThe Art of War and Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy by Sun Tzu
books with ‘philosophy’ in title
254 books — 27 voters

John Gardner
The writer asks himself, would A really cause B and not C, etc, and he creates what seems , at least by the test of his own imagination and experience of the world an inevitable development of story. Inevitability does not depend, of course, on realism. Some or all characters may be fabulous––dragons, griffins, Achilles' talking horses––but once a character is established for a creature, the creature must act in accord with it. ...more
John Gardner, On Morale Fiction

Ursula K. Le Guin
It is the story that makes the difference. It is the story that hid my humanity from me, the story the mammoth hunters told about bashing, thrusting, raping, killing, about the Hero. The wonderful, poisonous story of Botulism. The killer story. It sometimes seems that that story is approaching its end. Lest there be no more telling of stories at all, some of us out here in the wild oats, amid the alien corn, think we’d better start telling another one, which maybe people can go on with when the ...more
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

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