Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction 2/e (Very Short Introductions) Paperback – 28 July 2011

I'm sure I'm going to have owned three copies of this book in a very short space of time. The first copy I gave away to a stranger on the tube after he had been reading it over my shoulder between London Bridge and West Ham - a good read! He nudged me by way of starting a conversation about the book. Giving it to him was not difficult because replacing it would be a financial triviality and also I knew by then that what I was sharing was well worth the act of giving it away. I'll buy a third copy soon - sure I'll be giving away again soon.The introductory chapter will leave your tongue hanging and if your a budding poststructuralist it will also begin to drip. Culler uses examples from Foucault and Derrida to illustrate how literary theory can be perpendicular to the literature it critiques. It is probably no coincidence that both exemplars are poststructuralist in nature, Culler mentions that they both are but does not dwell on it. Indeed much of the theory presented in the book is poststructural in nature but Culler spares you the details. For most readers this may be fine as the book is about Literary Theory after all.After a very good introductory chapter the book settles down into covering the basic issues such as what is literature and how would we know it if we saw it. Literary components such a narrative, hermeneutics and poetics are explored and a rather good discussion around structural versus poststructural readings of texts {though of course not presented as such} is carried on under a subheading 'Meaning, intention, and context' {p66}. The differences and the similarities between cultural studies and literary studies is also explored. The book covers the basics well.The pace though only really does pick back up when poststructuralism is again directly approached towards the end of the book. A good example of this is when Culler illustrates that the apparent constative utterance at a birth of 'Its a boy' can in fact be performative - it is part of the process of constituting that new person according to sex. In another example Culler rehearses that by making the individual the centre, novels '..construct an ideology of individual identity whose neglect of larger social issues critics should question' {p113}. As an added bonus Culler throws something interesting into the agency/discourse cauldron - but why let me spoil it for you?A gem.

If you're studying Literary Theory/Criticism as part of an English Degree or similar, this is an ESSENTIAL buy! It's extremely helpful in outlining and clarifying key theories and schools of thought in a simple and concise way, and highlights important names and publications which you can look further into if a particular vein interests you.Alternatively, it's fantastic for last-minute cramming - got a First in this module, which I almost certainly wouldn't have achieved had I not had this resource to revise from! (And, unlike SparkNotes, you can cite it in your exam as a respectable secondary source!) It's not quite detailed enough to blag your way through a tutorial/small-group environment, but not a bad place to begin your preparatory reading either. Money well spent!

This is a short, largely jargon-free guide to literary theory, which explores the field not by school of criticism (formalism, post-structuralism, etc.), but rather by theme. This is a good approach, although it arguably leaves the reader with a slightly hazy sense of the particular theoretical contributions of people like Foucault and Barthes. But Culler writes very clearly, and this is a good starting point for exploring this area, although it would perhaps best be used in conjunction with a book like Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory or Raman Selden's Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory.

If only every book in the Very Short Introduction-series was written as lucidly as this volume I would buy them all without hesitation.The author does a miraculous job of sorting out the maze of the field of Litterary Science which has argurably been to eager in its choice of theory for the past 50-60 years. After reading this volume, however, you will have an adequate overview of the field and it will be within your possession to choose amongst the theories which interest you.Highly recommended!

No idea. Got bored reading the introduction and put it on a shelf to digest itself for awhile, but it was still unpalitable.If you're going to read it, do it drunk woth a spliff - it may sink in more than eyeball depth.

Book has heart of the matter subjects on literature.But problem is writing style of the author is heavy, difficult to follow causing loss of interest, derailing.

Good introduction, very accessible, a lot of food for thought!

Condensed theory. Couldn't get any better! Basic theory without the nonsense. Great buy.