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
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
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

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
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John CluteArmy of 29 Cats by Wynter St. VaughanArchaeologies of the Future by Fredric JamesonCritical Theory and Science Fiction by Carl Howard FreedmanThe Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of by Thomas M. Disch
Science Fiction Criticism
137 books — 29 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
The Sage Stone Prophecy by N.S. WikarskiA Day Dead Old by Carmen MartucciThe Poetics of Murder by Glenn W. MostHow to Write a Mystery by Lee ChildAngel of Death by Brian O'Hare
Detective Fiction: The Theory
73 books — 21 voters

Fredric Jameson
History is what hurts, it is what refuses desire and sets inexorable limits to individual as well as collective praxis...
Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious

Ursula K. Le Guin
Narrative is a stratagem of mortality. It is a means, a way of living. It does not seek immortality; it does not seek to triumph over or escape from time (as lyric poetry does). It asserts, affirms, participates in directional time, time experienced, time as meaningful. If the human mind had a temporal spectrum, the nirvana of the physicist or the mystic would be way over in the ultraviolet, and at the opposite end, in the infrared, would be wuthering Heights.
Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places

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