criticism

A series of brief essays providing definitions and explanations of literary terms, including references to related terms and reading selections.

Contains definitions and examples of over eight hundred literary terms, covering traditional, theoretical, historical, and cultural vocabulary; and features essays on some of the major themes in literature, including adultery, death, love, religious faith, and others.

Presents a discussion on how to understand symbolism in literature, discussing the appearance of journeys, eating, drowning, rain, violence, sex, illness, geography, Christ figures, and other signifiers, and how to see patterns the way literature professors do.

Contains definitions and examples of over 1,000 literary terms covering traditional, theoretical, historical, and cultural vocabulary; and features essays on some of the major themes in literature including adultery, death, love, and religious faith.

Introduces readers to contemporary critical theory and the most common approaches to literary analysis today. Provides coverage of a variety of theories, including feminism, reader-response theory, lesbian/gay/queer theory, African American criticism, and postcolonial criticism, and uses examples from everyday life, popular culture, and literary texts.

Presents Frederick Crews's 1963 spoof of literary criticism in which A. A. Milne's "Winnie-the-Pooh" is analyzed in twelve essays, and includes a 2002 preface that identifies some of the critics parodied.

A collection of essays that analyze a variety of ways that readers can interpret a piece of literature, from traditional approaches through the formalist, the psychological, the mythic and archetypal, and into contemporary approaches such as feminist criticism and cultural studies.