San Antonio College Library

Calling Samuel Johnson the greatest literary critic since Aristotle, Richard B. Schwartz assumes the perspective of that quintessential eighteenth-century man of letters to examine the critical and theoretical literary developments that gained momentum in the 1970s and stimulated the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Schwartz speculates that Johnson - who revered hard facts, a wide cultural base, and common sense - would have exhibited scant patience...

Literary Theory is a controversial subject. Said to have transformed the study of culture and society in the past two decades, it is accused of undermining respect for tradition and truth, encouraging suspicion about the political and psychological implications of cultural products rather than admiration for great literature. In this Very Short Introduction, Jonathan Culler explains 'theory', not by describing warring 'schools' but by sketching key...

Students of literature, film and cultural studies need to understand key theoretical terms and concepts but often find it hard to get to grips with exactly what they mean. This book provides precise definitions of terms and concepts in literary theory, along with explanations of the major movements and figures in literary and cultural theory and an extensive bibliography. It is designed for the student who needs to know what a particular term means,...

Provides both an introduction and a cross-section of the field, proposing why one should, and how one might, study the literature of war. Contributors offer samplings from the vast body of war-related literature and film, from the Iliad and Shakespeare to documentary films about the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan in the first decade of the 21st century. --From publisher description.

This book is a sustained conversation about the nature and importance of literary interpretation. Denis Donoghue argues that we must read texts closely and imaginatively, as opposed to merely or mistakenly theorizing about them. He shows what serious reading entails by discussing texts that range from Shakespeare's plays to a novel by Cormac McCarthy.