Customer Reviews
Easier to comprehend than most - odd lapses into pseudyness - By: Jonty H Campbell, 28 Oct 2008 
I like this book, it explains Eng Lit without indulgingin too many nerdy 'Fry & Laurie' type "well I saw six levels", "oh well I saw eight levels" pseudy intellectual onanism type of 'inpenetetrable gobs***e' that is so often a problem with other self-indulgent textbooks.
The useful thing with this book is the authors provide further reading on each subject a glossary list of examined & novels. My only minus is it's a tad light on poetry coverage & sophocles/greek plays.
If you're a total beginner to eng lit get a more basics primer first & read this alongside as it's halfway between A level & degree level. Read it with a pencil for your margin notes too!
Ten star rating and more - By: P. Clark, 22 Mar 2007 
This book achieves the impossible. It makes the difficult & obtuse polemical & theoretical debates of recent history easy to read. Yes, believe it or not! I cannot find enough congratulations to give for this excellent & learned book. The achievement of the age. Thank you for making clear sense of it all.My newly found bible for Literary Critical research.
A worthy introduction but only goes so far - By: Mr. RW Abbotson, 08 Mar 2007 
This book is a useful tool for students wishing to grasp the basics, & sample a broad range, of critical approaches to literature. However, if you wish to explore a particular approach to a higher level, then this book will not be adequate on its own. For example, the fact that only a few pages are dedicated to the concept of 'gender' goes to show that this really is only an introductory work, & it could be argued that literary theory is not something that can be 'summed up'in the form of brief, introductory chapters.
Having said this, each chapter provides reading lists for additional relevant material, & therefore it is a good way to break into the field. Just be prepared to getin the library & seek out other books if a particular approach interests you. Don't expect to rely entirely on this.
I love this book! - By: Joanna Spooner, 10 Nov 2006 Whilst trying to write an essay about desire, I became so confused I just wanted a book that would explain the various theoriesin simple language so that I would understand it. This book did just that. It provides introductions to complex topics & establishes a foundation of knowledge that you can build on with the handily referenced further reading, or reading of your own. Its now become my first port of call when writing essays, so I don't become tangled upin complex criticism & theories.
Superficial and condescending. - By: , 18 Feb 2006 
In my first year as an UG philosophy & literature student, this book very nearly put me completely off literary theory: each of its chapters would be brilliant as an INTRODUCTION to an essay on each of the topics it pretends to discuss. Not only is the tone it takes insultingly condescending, but its authors have a real penchant for making seriously unsubstantiated statements. It's also stultifyingly politically correct, refusing to take any account of points of view that don't belong to the prevalent orthodoxy. It places excessive emphasis on 'close reading', which, even if intelligently & insightfully done (as it is here), is always prone to cause major lapsesin the maintenance of a sense of perspective.
Theory IS difficult, & it isin't by means of such reductionism that it will, lo & behold, be made entertaining & accessible to all.
