Modern literary criticism and theory : a history / M.A.R. Habib.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Habib, Rafey.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Criticism--History--20th century.

Criticism.

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 252 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2008.

Summary:

Modern Literary Criticism and Theory: A History is the most comprehensive account of modern criticism and theory available in the English language. It provides a historical survey of the various modes of literary criticism developed in the twentieth century. It is distinguished from other texts in the field not only by providing the larger historical contexts of modern critical works, but also by engaging in close readings of some of the major and commonly taught texts, offering clear, detailed, and philosophically informed explanations of difficult works.

This broadly chronological narrative explores the works of a diverse group of twentieth-century writers - from Irving Babbitt and T. S. Eliot through Simone de Beauvoir and Martin Heidegger to Jacques Derrida, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek, and Elaine Scarry. It stresses the continuity and connections between the various critical approaches of formalism, psychoanalysis, structuralism, deconstruction, Marxism, feminism, gender studies, reader-response and reception theory, historicism, cultural studies, and film theory, as well as the new emphases on aestheticism and liberalism. An invaluable resource for students and teachers at all levels, this book will also appeal to anyone interested in modern literature and culture.

Contents:

Formative Moments in the History of Literary Criticism 3

Historical Backgrounds of Modern Criticism and Theory 5

The Scope of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism 7

1 The First Decades: From Liberal Humanism to Formalism 10

The New Humanists, Neo-Romantics, and Precursors of Formalism 11

The Background of Modernism 13

The Poetics of Modernism: W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot 15

Formalism 17

Russian Formalism 19

Boris Eichenbaum (1886-1959) 20

Mikhail M. Bakhtin (1895-1975) 21

Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) 25

The New Criticism 26

John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974) 27

William K. Wimsatt, Jr. (1907-1975) and Monroe C. Beardsley (1915-1985) 28

2 Socially Conscious Criticism of the Earlier Twentieth Century 31

F. R. Leavis (1895-1978) and Scrutiny 32

Marxist and Left-Wing Criticism 33

Socialist Criticism in Britain 35

The Fundamental Principles of Marxism 35

Marxist Literary Criticism: A Historical Overview 38

Early Feminist Criticism: Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir 42

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) 44

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) 50

3 Criticism and Theory After the Second World War 55

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Phenomenology 56

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Existentialism 59

Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and Heterology 65

Structuralism 69

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) 70

Roland Barthes (1915-1980) 72

4 The Era of Poststructuralism (I): Later Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction 77

Later Marxist Criticism 79

Terry Eagleton (b. 1943) 80

Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan 83

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) 85

Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) 91

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Deconstruction 99

5 The Era of Poststructuralism (II): Postmodernism, Modern Feminism, Gender Studies 113

Postmodernism 113

Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929) 117

Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) 118

Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-1998) 123

bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins; b. 1952) 126

Modern Feminism 127

French Feminism 127

American Feminism 128

British Feminism 129

Julia Kristeva (b. 1941) 130

Helene Cixous (b. 1937) 132

Gender Studies 137

Gayle Rubin (b. 1949) 140

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (b. 1950) 141

Judith Butler (b. 1956) 142

6 The Later Twentieth Century: New Historicism, Reader-Response Theory, and Postcolonial Criticism 146

New Historicism 147

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) 151

Reader-Response and Reception Theory 153

Wolfgang Iser (b. 1926) 155

Stanley Fish (b. 1938) 157

Postcolonial Criticism 159

Edward Said (1935-2004) 163

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (b. 1942) 165

Homi K. Bhabha (b. 1949) 166

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (b. 1950) 167

7 Cultural Studies and Film Theory 172

Cultural Studies 172

Raymond Williams (1921-1988) 177

Stuart Hall (b. 1932) 180

Dick Hebdige (b. 1951) 183

John Fiske 186

Susan Bordo (b. 1947) 188

Film Theory 191

Andrew Sarris (b. 1928) and Auteur Theory 195

Jim Kitses: The Study of Genre 196

Christian Metz (1931-1993): A Psychoanalytic Perspective 197

Laura Mulvey (b. 1941): Feminist Film Theory 200

8 Contemporary Directions: The Return of the Public Intellectual 204

The New Liberalism: Martha Nussbaum, Elaine Scarry, John Carey 205

Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947) 205

Elaine Scarry (b. 1946) 207

John Carey (b. 1934) 210

The New Aestheticism 211

The New Theorists of Revolution: Zizek, Hardt, Negri 213

Slavoj Zizek (b. 1949) 213

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri: The Concept of Empire 219

Epilogue: The Myth of Liberal Humanism 225.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781405176675

1405176679

9781405176668

1405176660

OCLC:

170057970

Online:

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