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This third edition of Hans Bertens' bestselling book is an essential guide to the often confusing and complicated world of literary theory. Exploring a broad range of topics from Marxist and feminist criticism to postmodernism and new historicism Literary Theory: The Basics covers contemporary topics including:




reception theory and reader response theory
the new criticism of postmodernism
the 'after theory' debate
post-humanism, biopolitics and animal studies
aesthetics








Literary Theory: The Basics helps readers to approach the many theories and debates in this field with confidence. Now with updated case studies and further reading this is an essential purchase for anyone who strives to understand literary theory today.

Literary Theory: The Basics: The Basics

Introduction 1. Reading for meaning: practical criticism and New Criticism 2. Reading for Form I: Formulism and easy structuralism, 1914-60 3. Reading for form II: French Structuralism, 1950-75 4. Political Reading: the 1970s and 1980s 5. The Postructuralist revolution: Derrida, deconstruction, and postmodernism 6.Postructuralism continued: Foucault, Lacan, and French feminism 7. Literature and culture: the new historicism and cultural materialism 8. Postcolonial criticism and theory 9.Sexuality, Literature, and culture 10. Ecocriticism 11. New Directions Conclusion