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101 books
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23 voters
Literary Theory Books
Showing 1-50 of 8,712
Literary Theory: An Introduction (Paperback)
by (shelved 159 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.94 — 5,666 ratings — published 1983
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Paperback)
by (shelved 86 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.64 — 4,599 ratings — published 1997
Poetics (Paperback)
by (shelved 68 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.83 — 29,431 ratings — published -335
Mythologies (Paperback)
by (shelved 61 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.08 — 17,131 ratings — published 1957
The Pleasure of the Text (Paperback)
by (shelved 59 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.00 — 5,899 ratings — published 1973
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Paperback)
by (shelved 55 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.29 — 3,751 ratings — published 1942
Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (Paperback)
by (shelved 52 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.86 — 2,972 ratings — published 1995
Anatomy of Criticism (Paperback)
by (shelved 47 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.09 — 1,964 ratings — published 1957
The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (Paperback)
by (shelved 46 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.17 — 3,604 ratings — published 1975
S/Z: An Essay (Paperback)
by (shelved 46 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.00 — 3,892 ratings — published 1970
The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (Paperback)
by (shelved 45 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.21 — 4,120 ratings — published 1979
How to Read Literature (Hardcover)
by (shelved 44 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.69 — 2,639 ratings — published 2013
Aspects of the Novel (Paperback)
by (shelved 43 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.80 — 4,949 ratings — published 1927
How Fiction Works (Paperback)
by (shelved 43 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.99 — 8,153 ratings — published 2008
The Theory of the Novel (Paperback)
by (shelved 42 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.84 — 1,480 ratings — published 1916
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (Paperback)
by (shelved 42 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.29 — 12,467 ratings — published 1955
Orientalism (Paperback)
by (shelved 41 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.13 — 29,566 ratings — published 1978
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (Hardcover)
by (shelved 41 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.13 — 2,133 ratings — published 2001
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (Paperback)
by (shelved 37 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.86 — 3,604 ratings — published 1994
The Death of the Author
by (shelved 37 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.93 — 3,266 ratings — published 1967
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (Paperback)
by (shelved 36 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.77 — 1,749 ratings — published 1973
The Rhetoric of Fiction (Paperback)
by (shelved 29 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.01 — 1,273 ratings — published 1961
Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Paperback)
by (shelved 28 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.00 — 7,512 ratings — published 1991
The Art of the Novel (Paperback)
by (shelved 28 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.98 — 7,233 ratings — published 1960
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (Paperback)
by (shelved 28 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.07 — 4,001 ratings — published 1980
The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Paperback)
by (shelved 28 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.91 — 1,451 ratings — published 1970
Against Interpretation and Other Essays (Paperback)
by (shelved 27 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.14 — 10,358 ratings — published 1966
Marxism and Literary Criticism (Paperback)
by (shelved 27 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.89 — 1,114 ratings — published 1976
Writing and Difference (Paperback)
by (shelved 26 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.00 — 7,916 ratings — published 1967
Of Grammatology (Paperback)
by (shelved 26 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.97 — 5,347 ratings — published 1967
Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide (Paperback)
by (shelved 25 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.03 — 1,503 ratings — published 1998
A Room of One’s Own (Paperback)
by (shelved 25 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.22 — 258,966 ratings — published 1929
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines (Paperback)
by (shelved 25 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.58 — 33,946 ratings — published 2003
How to Read and Why (Paperback)
by (shelved 25 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.61 — 3,852 ratings — published 2000
Rabelais and His World (Paperback)
by (shelved 25 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.26 — 1,547 ratings — published 1965
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Paperback)
by (shelved 25 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.32 — 7,550 ratings — published 1992
Lectures on Literature (Paperback)
by (shelved 24 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.32 — 2,666 ratings — published 1980
Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics (Paperback)
by (shelved 24 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.36 — 1,163 ratings — published 1963
Image - Music - Text (Paperback)
by (shelved 24 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.09 — 3,818 ratings — published 1977
Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Paperback)
by (shelved 24 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.95 — 523 ratings — published 1979
Culture and Imperialism (Paperback)
by (shelved 23 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.19 — 5,795 ratings — published 1993
A Lover's Discourse: Fragments (Paperback)
by (shelved 23 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.36 — 13,733 ratings — published 1977
Writing Degree Zero (Paperback)
by (shelved 23 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.88 — 1,905 ratings — published 1953
Theory of Prose (Russian Literature)
by (shelved 22 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.14 — 273 ratings — published 1925
Morphology of the Folktale (Paperback)
by (shelved 22 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.01 — 2,180 ratings — published 1928
Literature and Evil (Paperback)
by (shelved 22 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.96 — 1,534 ratings — published 1957
Marxism and Literature (Paperback)
by (shelved 22 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 4.08 — 1,676 ratings — published 1977
Why Read the Classics? (Paperback)
by (shelved 21 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.82 — 3,357 ratings — published 1991
After Theory (Paperback)
by (shelved 21 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.81 — 1,017 ratings — published 2003
The Art of Fiction (Paperback)
by (shelved 20 times as literary-theory)
avg rating 3.92 — 3,058 ratings — published 1992
“I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation—none other than an interest in being born again as somebody else—suggests that he is not happy!”
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“A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity--he is continually in for--and filling some other Body--The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute--the poet has none; no identity--he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God's Creatures. If then he has no self, and if I am a Poet, where is the Wonder that I should say I would write no more?”
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