This set reissues 27 books on literary theory originally published between 1965 and 1992. Top academics in the field examine different aspects of literary theory, including structuralism, post-structuralism, stylistics and semiotics, and approach these theories in a variety of ways. This set will be of particular interest to students of literature and literary theory.

In this original and significant contribution to literary controversy, first published in 1989, Professor Jackson argues on semantic grounds that historical criticism, which he defines as the attempt to read works of literature and criticism as they were read when they were new, is a necessary preliminary to other ways of approaching the literature of the past. He distinguishes between the difficulties inherent in the practice of historical critics and the problems encountered by historians. Historical criticism as he describes it is an ideal that has yet to be attained and he explores...

The purpose of this book, first published in 1990, is to call attention to the contrast between the remarkable politicization of the rhetoric of literary criticism and the scarcity of interest in the concrete historical and political contexts of literary texts. Deconstruction and the Politics of Criticism will be of interest to students of literature and literary theory.

The contributors of this text, first published in 1988, provide a dynamic view of the social functioning of texts, taking account of linguistic, literary and cultural elements. They bring together innovative perspectives on literary analysis and theory, on pragmatics and discourse analysis, as well as on text linguistics and reception theory. Various text types are examined, and the editor introduces each chapter in order to draw them all together to make a fascinating and cohesive whole.

This book, first published in 1988, does not concern the theory of poetry so much as the poetry of theory: a poetry that theorizes, that has a "view" on things, that thinks. What or what things does poetry think about, and what do we mean by thinking? The author attempts to answer these questions by examining the work of three poets – Wallace Stevens, César Vallejo, and René Char – and reflects upon the poetry itself. This title will be of interest to students of literature and literary theory.

This title, first published in 1984, is a study of E. M. Forster as a liberal-humanist thinker and socio-literary critic. Advani discusses Forster’s ideas on man, society, politics, religion, art, aesthetics, fiction and literary criticism. The author examines why Forster was impelled from fiction towards socio-literary criticism and propaganda for art within the political and cultural context of post-Great War Britain. The book argues for Forster’s continuing importance as much more than a skilful novelist. It will be of interest to students of English cultural history, literary...

In this book, first published in 1989, Mary Bittner Wiseman interprets Roland Barthes’s experiments as efforts to reposition the human subject with respect to language and to time in order to let the subject escape from the language of a particular culture and the present time. With her insistent pushing against the boundaries of our standard academic assumptions, Mary Bittner Wiseman succeeds in interpreting Barthes’s effort to join the traditional and the new. This title will be of interest to students of literature and philosophy.

This book, first published in 1987, differs from many other ‘dictionaries of criticism’ in concentrating less on time-honoured rhetorical terms and more on conceptually flexible, powerful terms. Each entry consists of not simply a dictionary definition but an essay exploring the history and full significance of the term, and its possibilities in critical discourse. This title is an ideal basic reference text for literature students of all levels.

In this text, first published in 1994, the author examines the interdisciplinary significance of the theory of science, literature and philosophy according to the figures who achieved prominence in those fields - Kuhn, Bloom and Derrida. Each scholar's theory is discussed in terms of its major concepts, and the book then relates their fields within the context of deconstruction's interdisciplinary movement. This title will be of interest to students of literature and philosophy.

In this book, first published in 1989, twenty-give eminent critics and theorists write about different aspects of literary theory. These essays represent leading research in psychoanalytic criticism, new historicism, Continental theory, feminism, Afro-American studies, philosophy, cybernetics, aesthetics, and other theoretical inflections. The result is a collective statement on the course that lies ahead for criticism in the humanities, and will be of interest to students of literary theory.