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Tables of Contents for Beginning Theory
Chapter/Section Title
Page #
Page Count
Acknowledgements
ix
Introduction
1
1
About this book
1
5
Approaching theory
6
3
Stop and think: Reviewing your study of literature to date
8
1
-- My own stock-taking
9
2
Theory before `theory' -- liberal humanism
11
28
The history of English studies
11
5
Stop and think:
11
5
Ten tenets of liberal humanism
16
5
Literary theorising from Aristotle to Leavis -- some key moments
21
10
Liberal humanism in practice
31
1
The transition to `theory'
32
2
Some recurrent ideas in critical theory
34
2
Selected reading
36
3
Structuralism
39
22
Structuralist chickens and liberal humanist eggs
39
2
Signs of the fathers -- Saussure
41
5
Stop and think
45
1
The scope of structuralism
46
3
What structuralist critics do
49
1
Structuralist criticism: examples
50
10
Stop and think
53
2
Stop and think
55
2
Stop and think
57
3
Selected reading
60
1
Post-structuralism and deconstruction
61
20
Some theoretical differences between structuralism and post-structuralism
61
4
Post-structuralism - life on a decentred planet
65
5
Stop and think
68
2
Structuralism and post-structuralism - some practical differences
70
3
What post-structuralist critics do
73
1
Deconstruction: an example
73
6
Selected reading
79
2
Postmodernism
81
15
What is postmodernism? What was modernism?
81
4
`Landmarks' in postmodernism: Habermas and Baudrillard
85
6
Stop and think
90
1
What postmodernist critics do
91
1
Postmodernist criticism: an example
91
3
Selected reading
94
2
Psychoanalytic criticism
96
25
Introduction
96
2
How Freudian interpretation works
98
4
Stop and think
101
1
Freud and evidence
102
3
What Freudian psychoanalytic critics do
105
1
Freudian psychoanlytic criticism: examples
105
3
Lacan
108
7
What Lacanian critics do
115
1
Lacanian criticism: an example
115
3
Selected reading
118
3
Feminist criticism
121
18
Feminism and feminist criticism
121
3
Feminist criticism and the role of theory
124
2
Feminist criticism and language
126
4
Feminist criticism and psychoanalysis
130
4
Stop and think
133
1
What feminist critics do
134
1
Feminist criticism: an example
134
2
Selected reading
136
3
Lesbian/gay criticism
139
17
Lesbian and gay theory
139
1
Lesbian feminism
140
3
Queer theory
143
5
What lesbian/gay criticis do
148
2
Stop and think
149
1
Lesbian/gay criticism: an example
150
3
Selected reading
153
3
Marxist criticism
156
16
Beginnings and basics of Marxism
156
2
Marxist literary criticism: general
158
1
`Leninist' Marxist criticism
159
2
`Engelsian' Marxist criticism
161
2
The present: the influence of Althusser
163
4
Stop and think
166
1
What Marxist critics do
167
1
Marxist criticism: an example
168
2
Selected reading
170
2
New historicism and cultural materialism
172
19
New historicism
172
2
New and old historicisms - some differences
174
1
New historicism and Foucault
175
2
Advantages and disadvantages of new historicism
177
2
Stop and think
178
1
What new historicists do
179
1
New historicism: an example
179
3
Cultural materialism
182
2
How is cultural materialism different from new historicism?
184
3
Stop and think
186
1
What cultural materialist critics do
187
1
Cultural materialism: an example
187
2
Selected reading
189
2
Postcolonial criticism
191
11
Background
191
2
Postcolonial reading
193
5
Stop and think
197
1
What postcolonialist critics do
198
1
Postcolonialist criticism: an example
199
1
Selected reading
200
2
Stylistics
202
18
Stylistics, a theory or a practice?
000
204
A brief historical account: from rhetoric, to philology, to linguistics, to stylistics, to new stylistics
204
3
How does stylistics differ from standard close reading?
207
2
The ambitions of stylistics
209
4
Stop and think
212
1
What stylistic critics do
213
1
Stylistics: examples
214
4
Selected reading
218
2
Appendices
220
7
1 `The oval portrait'
220
3
Edgar Allan Poe
2 `A refusal to mourn'
223
1
Dylan Thomas
3 `The castaway'
224
3
William Cowper
Where do we go from here? Further reading
227
6
General guides
227
1
Reference books
227
1
General readers
228
1
Applying critical theory: twelve examples
229
2
Against theory
231
2
Index
233