The third edition of Literary Criticism:An Introduction to Theory and Practiceby Charles E. Bressler presents the eleven basicschools of twentieth-century literary theory andcriticism in their historical and philosophicalcontexts. Unlike other introduction to literarycriticism, this text explores the philosophicalassumptions of each school of criticism, providesa clear methodology for writing essays according to each school's beliefs and tenets, andfeatures accessible student-generated sample es

Forewordix .
To the Readerxii
1 Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature1
Eavesdropping on a Literature Classroom1
Can a Text Have More Than One Interpretation?
How to Become a Literary Critic3
What Is Literary Criticism?4
What Is Literary Theory?6
Making Meaning from Text7
The Reading Process and Literary Theory8
What Is Literature?10
Literary Theory and the Definition of Literature12
The Function of Literature and Literary Theory13
Beginning the Formal Study of Literary Theory14
Further Reading15

2 A Historical Survey of Literary Criticism16
Introduction16
Plato (ca. 427-347 s.c.)16
Aristotle (384-322 s.c.)18
Horace (65-8 B.c.)21
Longinus (First Century A.D.)22
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)23
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)24
John Dryden (1631-1700)24
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)25
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)26
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893)29
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)30
Henry James (1843-1916)32
Modem Literary Criticism34
Further Reading35

3 New Criticism37
Introduction37
Historical Development39
Assumptions42
Methodology45
Questions for Analysis48
Sample Essay48
Further Reading49
Web Sites for Exploration49
Student Essay:
Dale Schuurman, Keats's "To Autumn":
Verses of Praise for a Malicious Season?50

4 Reader-Response Criticism. 55
Introduction55
Historical Development57
Assumptions61
Methodology63
Questions for Analysis69
Sample Essay70
Further Reading70
Web Sites for Exploration71
Student Essay:
Jennifer Douglas, "Ethan Brand's" Challenge to Me72

5 Structuralism75
Introduction75
Historical Development76
Assumptions82
Methodologies84
Questions for Analysis89
Sample Essay89
Further Reading90
Web Sites for Exploration90
Student Essay:
Conie Krause, Will the Real Walter Mitty Please Wake Up:
A Structuralist's View of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"91

6 Deconstruction94
Structuralism and Poststructuralism: Two Views of the World94
Modernity96
Poststructuralism or Postmodernism98
Historical Development100
Assumptions104
Methodology107
American Deconstructors113
Questions for Analysis114
Sample Essay114
Further Reading115
Web Sites for Exploration115
Student Essay:
Jennifer Douglas, Deconstructing a "Real" House116

7 Psychoanalytic Criticism119
Introduction119
Historical Development121
Assumptions132
Methodologies133
Questions for Analysis135
Sample Essay136
Further Reading136
Web Sites for Exploration137
Student Essay:
David Johnson, A Psychoanalytic Approach to Poe's "The City
in the Sea"137

8 Feminism142
Introduction142
Historical Development144
Assumptions153
Methodology154
Questions for Analysis156
Sample Essay156
Further Reading157
Web Sites for Exploration157
Student Essay:
Lori Huth, Throwing Off the Yoke: "Rip Van Winkle"
and Women158

9 Marxism161
Introduction161
Historical Development162
Assumptions170
Methodology172
Questions for Analysis173
Sample Essay174
Further Reading174
Web Sites for Exploration175
Student Essay:
Juanita Wolfe, Baking Bread for the Bourgeoisie ..175

10 Cultural Poetics179
or New Historicism
Introduction179
Historical Development181
Assumptions185
Methodology188
Questions for Textual Analysis190
Questions for Analysis191
Sample Essay191
Further Reading191
Web Sites for Exploration192
Student Essay:
Krista Adlhock, Hawthorne's Understanding of History
in "The Maypole of Merry Mount"193

11 Cultural Studies197
Introduction197
Postcolonialism: "The Empire Writes Back"199
Historical Development of Postcolonialism200
Assumptions of Postcolonialist Theory202
Methodology204
Questions for Analysis205
Postcolonialism and African American Criticism205
Gender Studies: New Directions in Feminism208
Sample Essay209
Further Reading209
Web Sites for Exploration210
Student Essay:
Wendy Rader, "The Gentlemen of the Jungle":
Or Are They Beasts?211
Literary Selections214
John Keats, "To Autumn"214
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Ethan Brand"215
James Thurber, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"228
Sandra Cisneros, "The House on Mango Street"232
Edgar Allan Poe, "The City in the Sea"233
Washington Irving, "Rip Van Winkle"235
Tony Harrison, "Marked with D."248
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Maypole of Merry Mount" 248
Jomo Kenyatta, "The Gentlemen of the Jungle"256
Glossary260
References289
Credits312
Credits312
Index314
……

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE (1828-1893)Wordsworth's romanticism, with its stress on intuition as a guide to learningultimate truth and its belief that emotions and the imagination form the coreof poetry's content, dominated literature and literary criticism throughoutthe first three decades of the nineteenth century, and its influence still contin-ues today. With the rise of the Victorian era in the 1830s, reason,, science, anda sense of historical determinism began to supplant Romantic thought. Thegrowing sense of historical and scientific determinism finally found its au-thoritative voice and culminating influence in Charles Darwin and his textOn the Origin of Species, published in 1859. Humankind was now demysti-fied, for we finally knew our origins and understood our physiological de-velopment; science, it seemed, had provided us with the key to our past andan understanding of the present, and would help us determine our future ifwe relied on the scientific method in all our human endeavors.
Science's methodology, its philosophical assumptions, and its practicalapplications found an admiring adherent and a strong voice in French histo-rian and literary critic Hippolyte Taine. Born in Vouziers, France, HippolyteTaine was a brilliant but unorthodox student at the Ircole NormaleSuprrieure in Paris. After finishing his formal education, he taught in vari-ous schools throughout France, continuing his investigations in both aesthet-ics and history. During the 1850s, he published various philosophical andaesthetic treatises, but his chief contribution to literary criticism and historyis The History of English Literature, published in 1863. In this work, Taine crys-tallizes what is now known as the historical approach to literary analysis.
In the introduction to The History of English Literature, Taine uses a scien-tific simile to explain his approach to literary criticism. Early in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we learn about Tom Sawyer's gang and his "deep laid" plans, for Tom and his inner circleof friends dedicate one memorable occasion to working out such details: thename of the gang, its objectives, its general line of business——its modusoperandi. But there are problems, namely, problems of interpretation. Afterall, not everybody defines "gang" the same way. These interpretive prob-lems are not insurmountable, so we discover, but they are real, at least for afew enchanted moments in the narrative.