The Complete Idiot's Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism PDF Author: Steven J. Venturino, PhD
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1615643273
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
From Plato to Freud to ecocriticism, the book illustrates dozens of stimulating-and sometimes notoriously complex-perspectives for approaching literature and film. The book offers authoritative, clear, and easy-to-follow explanations of theories that range from established classics to the controversies of current theory. Each chapter offers a conversational, step-by-step explanation of a single theory, critic, or issue, accompanied by concrete examples for applying the concepts and engaging suggestions for related literary readings. Following a section on the foundations of literary theory, the book is organized thematically, with an eye to the best way to develop a real, working understanding of the various theories. Cross-references are particularly important, since it's through the interaction of examples that readers most effectively advance from basic topics and arguments to some of the more specialized and complicated issues. Each chapter is designed to tell a complete story, yet also to reach out to other chapters for development and debate. Literary theorists are hardly unified in their views, and this book reflects the various traditions, agreements, influences, and squabbles that are a part of the field. Special features include hundreds of references to and quotations from novels, stories, plays, poems, movies, and other media. Online resources could also include video and music clips, as well as high-quality examples of visual art mentioned in the book. The book also includes periodic "running" references to selected key titles (such as Frankenstein) in order to illustrate the effect of different theories on a single work.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism PDF Author: Steven J. Venturino, PhD
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1615643273
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book

Book Description
From Plato to Freud to ecocriticism, the book illustrates dozens of stimulating-and sometimes notoriously complex-perspectives for approaching literature and film. The book offers authoritative, clear, and easy-to-follow explanations of theories that range from established classics to the controversies of current theory. Each chapter offers a conversational, step-by-step explanation of a single theory, critic, or issue, accompanied by concrete examples for applying the concepts and engaging suggestions for related literary readings. Following a section on the foundations of literary theory, the book is organized thematically, with an eye to the best way to develop a real, working understanding of the various theories. Cross-references are particularly important, since it's through the interaction of examples that readers most effectively advance from basic topics and arguments to some of the more specialized and complicated issues. Each chapter is designed to tell a complete story, yet also to reach out to other chapters for development and debate. Literary theorists are hardly unified in their views, and this book reflects the various traditions, agreements, influences, and squabbles that are a part of the field. Special features include hundreds of references to and quotations from novels, stories, plays, poems, movies, and other media. Online resources could also include video and music clips, as well as high-quality examples of visual art mentioned in the book. The book also includes periodic "running" references to selected key titles (such as Frankenstein) in order to illustrate the effect of different theories on a single work.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Critical Reading

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Critical Reading PDF Author: Amy Wall
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 144069642X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
The essential guide to looking at literature with your own two eyes. What students know about Shakespeare, Orwell, Dickens, and Twain is primarily what their instructors tell them. Here’s a book that teaches the students how to move on to the next level—evaluate and read critically on their own, trust their own opinions, develop original ideas, analyze characters, and find a deeper appreciation for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and more. • Ideal companion for college students and accessible for the casual reader as well. • Covers fiction, poetry, narrative nonfiction, biographies and memoirs, essays and editorials, and newspapers, magazines, and journals. • Features examples from published writing. • Includes a reading list and a glossary of literary terms.

Complete Idiot's Guide to Critical Reading

Complete Idiot's Guide to Critical Reading PDF Author: Amy Wall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781336122987
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature

The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature PDF Author: Laurie E. Rozakis
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780028633787
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
Looks at American authors from Washington Irving to John Updike and provides brief biographical sketches, excerpts and summaries of major works, and explanations of major literary movements

The Complete Idiot's Guide to English Literature

The Complete Idiot's Guide to English Literature PDF Author: Jay Stevenson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781592576562
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description


The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature

The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature PDF Author: Laurie Rozakis
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101198818
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
You're no idiot, of course. You know that Samuel Clemens had a better-known pen name, Moby Dick is a famous whale, and the Raven only said,"Nevermore." But when it comes to understanding the great works of Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe, you'd rather rent the videos than head to your local library. Don't tear up your library card yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide® to American Literature teaches you all about the rich tradition of American prose and poetry, so you can fully appreciate its magnificent diversity.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Memoir

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Memoir PDF Author: Victoria Costello
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Ltd
ISBN: 0241884853
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Helps readers write memoirs, personal essays, and life stories of every length and type.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microbiology

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microbiology PDF Author: Jeffrey J. Byrd Ph.D.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440696748
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Small creatures of great importance. Microbiology, the branch of biology that studies microorganisms and their effects on humans, is a key part of medical training curriculum. Written by a top professor of microbiology and an experienced science writer, this book is a basic microbiology course that can be understood by anyone, including medical students, professionals wanting to bone up on the subject, and laypersons wanting to know about the topic. • Includes coverage on microbes and their relationship with each other, the body’s immune system, infectious diseases, biotechnology, and bioterrorism

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List PDF Author: John Charles
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440625603
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Great reads for busy people. This is a guide to help busy people find great reads in fiction and nonfiction. Filled with recommendations of popular, entertaining reading, this book covers mystery and suspense, romance, women’s fiction and chick lit, Westerns, science fiction, such nonfiction topics as animals, art, biography, memoirs, business, true crime, and more. Plus, each entry includes a summary of the book, its significance, and a critique/observation/comment.

Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners

Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners PDF Author: Donald D. Palmer
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
ISBN: 1939994233
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
“What is Structuralism? How is it possible? And once the structures of Structuralism have been discovered, how is Poststructuralism possible?” Thus begins Don Palmer’s Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners. If Nobel or Pulitzer ever made a prize for making the most difficult philosophers and ideas accessible to the greatest number of people, one of the leading candidates would certainly be Professor Don Palmer. From his Sartre For Beginners and Kierkegaard For Beginners to his Looking at Philosophy, author/illustrator Don Palmer has the magic touch when it comes to translating the most brutally difficult ideas into language and images that non-specialists can understand. “In its less dramatic versions,” writes Palme, “structuralism is just a method of studying language, society, and the works of artists and novelists. But in its most exuberant form, it is a philosophy, an overall worldview that provides an account of reality and knowledge.” Poststructuralism is a loosely knit intellectual movement, comprised mainly of ex-structuralists, who either became dissatisfied with the theory or felt they could improve it. Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners is an illustrated tour through the mysterious landscape of Structuralism and Poststructuralism. The book’s starting point is the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Sausser. The book moves on to the anthropologist and literary critic Claude Lévi-Strauss; the semiologost and literary critic Roland Barthes; the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser; the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida. Learn among other things, why structuralists say Reality is composed of not Things, but Relationships Every “object” is both a presence and an absence The total system is present in each of its parts The parts are more real than the whole The book concludes by examining the postmodern obsession with language and with the radical claim of the disappearance of the individual – obsessions that unite the work of all these theorists.