Richard Bradford provides a definitive introductory guide to modern critical ideas on literary style and stylistics. It will provide students with a basic grasp of stylistics and literary analysis.
This comprehensive and accessible guidebook for undergraduates examines:
* the terminology of literary form
* how literary style has evolved since the sixteenth century
* the role of stylistics in twentieth century criticism
* the discipline of stylistics from classical rhetoric to post-structuralism
* the relationship between literary style and its historical context
* style...

Culture/Metaculture is a stimulating introduction to the meanings of 'culture' in contemporary Western society. This essential survey examines:

* culture as an antidote to 'mass' modernity, in the work of Thomas Mann, Julien Benda, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Karl Mannheim and F. R. Leavis
* changing views of the term in the work of Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, T. S. Eliot and Richard Hoggart
* post-war theories of 'popular' culture and the rise of Cultural Studies, paying particular attention to the key figures of Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall
*...

Poetry criticism is a subject central to the study of literature. However, it is laden with technical terms that, to the beginning student, can be both intimidating and confusing. This text provides a remedy, illuminating terms ranging from the iambus to the bob-wheel stanza, and forms from the Spenserian sonnet to modern rap, with clarity and comprehensiveness. It should be a useful guide through the terminology for undergraduates new to the subject.

This volume provides an overview of the history of literature as a cultural concept, and reflects on the contemporary nature, place and function of what the literature might mean for us today. Coverage includes: a concise history of the canonic concept of literature from its earliest origins; theoretical issues which are invoked by the term literary; the potential uses of the literary within an pre-millennial culture.

Parody is part of all our lives. It occurs not only in literature, but also in everyday speech, in theatre and television, architecture and films. Drawing on examples from Aristophanes to The Simpsons, Simon Dentith explores:
* the place of parody in the history of literature
* parody as a subversive or conservative mode of writing
* parody's pivotal role in debates about postmodernism
* parody in the culture wars from ancient times to the present
This lively introduction situates parody at the heart of literary and cultural studies and offers a remarkably clear guide...

This book traces the phenomenon of class from the medieval to the postmodern period, uniquely examining its relevance to literary and cultural analysis. Drawing on historical, sociological and literary writings, Gary Day:
* gives an account of class at different historical moments
* shows the role of class in literary constructions of the social
* examines the complex relations between 'class' and 'culture'
* focuses attention on the role of class in constructions of 'the literary' and 'the canon'
* employs a revived and revised notion of class to critique recent theoretical...

The topic of the unconscious has figured largely in literary studies for some time. Antony Easthope approaches this controversial subject not in terms of the body but as meanings. Using the writings of Freud and Lacan this text offers chapters on: the existence of the unconscious; the unconscious and the subject; the unconscious and the text; and the unconscious and history. The book shows the existence of the unconscious in a variety of examples - from jokes and rugby songs to Hitchcock's Psycho and the life and death of Princess Diana.

Often derided as an inferior form of literature, 'romance' as a literary mode or genre defies satisfactory definition, dividing critics, scholars and readers alike. This useful guidebook traces the myriad transformations of 'romance' from medieval courtly love to Mills and Boon, and claims that its elusive and complex nature serves as a touchstone for larger questions of literary and cultural theory, such as:

• How does the history of 'romance' as a category force us to rethink the historicization of literary genres?
• What definitions can we provide for our own time to...

Difference is one of the most influential critical concepts of the second half of the 20th century. In this text, Mark Currie offers a comprehensive account of the history of the term and its place in some of the most influential schools of theory since the 1960s. The text encompasses topics such as: post-structuralism; deconstruction; new historicism; psychoanalysis; French feminism; and postcolonialism. Employing literary case studies throughout, the book aims to provide an accessible introduction to a term at the heart of modern critical idiom.

What is implied when we refer to the study of performing arts as 'drama', 'theatre' or 'performance'? Each term identifies a different tradition of thought and offers different possibilities to the student or practitioner. This book examines the history and use of the terms and investigates the different philosophies, politics, languages and institutions with which they are associated. Simon Shepherd and Mick Wallis:

• analyze attitudes to drama, theatre and performance at different historical junctures
• trace a range of political interventions into the field(s)
...