It has held sway in the humanities for nearly four decades, surviving even the great culture wars. But it is being used in surprising ways. Either literary theory is dead, or it’s invincible. It all ...

The status of literature - its meaning, structure, truth value, and social function - has proven, throughout history, to be surprisingly controversial, and has generated endless commentary. This class ...

“THE reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”, quipped Mark Twain when a newspaperman informed him about his obituary published in a newspaper. Of late, the rumours about the death of Urdu ...

Since structuralism in literary studies is largely of French origin, let this attempt to ruin its reputation have as its motto the words of a Frenchman, Pierre Bertaux: At one time it was hoped that ...

Introduces students to a wide range of critical theories that English majors need to know. Covers major movements in modern literary/critical theory, from Matthew Arnold through new criticism to ...

In 1966, Roland Barthes published a short book—a pamphlet, really—called Criticism and Truth, in response to Raymond Picard, a distinguished professor and the biographer of the French classical ...

“Poetics of Rhythm” – that is the title of a project currently in the starting blocks at Goethe University Frankfurt. The aim of Professor Achim Geisenhanslüke, Professor for Literary Theory and ...

To understand some of the puzzling trends in recent American literature, it helps to have a basic knowledge of the so-called “post-structuralist” theory that took hold in U.S. English departments in ...