Practising Theory and Reading Literature: An Introduction

219 Pages·1989·17.104 MB·English

by  Raman Selden

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ISBN 978-1-315-53843-3
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www.routledge.com(cid:15)aninformabusiness
Practising Theory and
Reading Literature
By the same author
English Verse Satire, 1590-1765, Allen & Unwin (1978)
Criticism and Objectivity, Allen & Unwin ( 1984)
The Poems ofJ ohn Oldham, co-editor with Harold Brooks, Clarendon
Press (1987)
Masterguide: John Dryden, Absalom andAchitophel, Penguin (1986)
The Theory of Criticism from Plato to the Present, Longman ( 1988)
A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, Harvester Press
(1985; 2nd edn, 1989)
Practising Theory and
Reading Literature
An Introduction
Raman Selden
Professar of English Literature
University of Lancaster
~~ ~~o~;~;n~~~up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1989 by Prentice Hall Europe
Published 2014 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
©Raman Seldon 1989
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any fonn or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new
research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research
methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become
necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds,
or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods
they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, includ-
ing parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, con-
tributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to
persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or other-
wise, or from any use or operation of any melhods, producls, inslruclions,
or ideas contained in the material herein.
ISBN 13:978-0-7108-1158-5 (pbk)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Seldon, Raman.
Practising theory and reading literature
1. Literature, Criticism!. Title
8010.'95
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgement& xi
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Anglo,A merican Criticism 17
1 Moral Criticism (F. R. Leavis) 19
John Bunyan
2 New Criticism 25
John Keats
3 'Rhetoric of Fiction' 30
Henry James
Chapter 2 Russian Formalism 35
4 'Baring the Device' 37
Laurence Sterne
5 'Making Strange' (Defamiliarisation) 41
Craig Raine, William Golding
Chapter 3 Structuralism 47
6 Naturalisation 49
Christopher Smart
7 Binary Oppositions 55
Arthur Miller
vi Contents
8 Narrative Theory 61
John Updike
9 Metaphor and Metonymy 67
Eugene O'Neill, Charles Dickens
Chapter 4 Poststructuralis~ 73
10 The Semiotics of the Sign and the Subject 75
Nathaniel Hawthorne
11 Psychoanalytic Criticism 81
William Shakespeare
12 Deconstruction 88
William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson
13 New Historicism 94
William Shakespeare
Chapter 5 Reader,response Criticism 101
14 Phenomenology (Geneva School) and Deconstruction 103
William Wordsworth
15 Norman Holland and Roland Barthes 109
Wallace Stevens
16 Jonathan Culler and Roland Barthes 115
Edgar Allan Poe
17 Wolfgang Iser 121
Harold Pinter
18 Hans RobertJauss 126
Arnold Wesker, Samuel Beckett
Chapter 6 Marxist and Feminist Criticism 133
19 Marxist and Feminist Criticism (Class and Gender) 135
John Milton
20 Feminist Criticism (Reading as a Woman) 141
Kingsley Amis
Contents vii
21 Feminist Criticism (Writing as a Woman) 146
Anne Bradstreet, Fleur Adcock
22 Marxist Criticism (Literature and Ideology) 153
Daniel Defoe
23 Marxism and Modernism (Lukacs and Brecht) 158
}ames Joyce
24 Marxist Criticism (Class Struggle and Bakhtin) 164
William Shakespeare
Exercises 170
References 201
Index 204
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Preface
I am grateful to Harvester Wheatsheaf for suggesting and encouraging
this book. I ·am much indebted to those colleagues at Lancaster
University whose collaboration in the teaching of the theory and
practice of criticism has kept me on my toes. I would like to thank
especially Alison Easton, Michael Wheeler, David Carroll, Tony
Sharpe, Robin Jarvis and Keith Hanley who have made helpful
comments on individual chapters of the book. A particularly warm
thank-you is due to Richard Dutton and Peter Widdowson who made
penetrating observations on the entire manuscript.