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Now in its fifth edition, A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature has become both a standard introduction to the close reading of literature and an invaluable resource for English graduate students. It offers students and other readers a variety of ways to interpret a piece of literature, ranging from historical/biographical and moral/philosophical approaches through the formalist, the psychological, the mythic and archetypal, and into such contemporary perspectives as feminist criticism and cultural studies. The book applies these diverse approaches to the same six classic works--"To His Coy Mistress," Hamlet, Huckleberry Finn, "Young Goodman Brown," "Everyday Use," and, new to this edition, Frankenstein--showing students how various methods offer different insights and enriching their response to and understanding of the individual works. The fifth edition is enhanced by the addition of Frankenstein, a complex work that lends itself to multiple levels of interpretation and is familiar in both its cinematic and literary forms. The coverage of Frankenstein incorporates material on popular culture--discussions of various fiction, stage, film, and television appearances of the work--as well as several photographs. This edition also features organizational and content changes that bring the volume up-to-date with contemporary literary criticism. Offering a valuable combination of theory and practice, A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, Fifth Edition, is ideal for courses in literary criticism or theory and can also be used in introduction to literature courses.
Providing in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis, this guide can be used as the only text in a course or as a precursor to the study of primary theoretical works. It aims to motivate readers by showing them what critical theory can offer in terms of their practical understanding of literary texts and in terms of their personal understanding of themselves and the world in which they live. The text offers a how-to book for undergraduate and graduate students new to critical theory and for lecturers who want to broaden their repertoire of critical approaches to literature.
Suggested Websites
Purdue OWL's Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism
A very basic way of thinking about literary theory is that these ideas act as different lenses critics use to view and talk about art, literature, and even culture. These different lenses allow critics to consider works of art based on certain assumptions within that school of theory. The different lenses also allow critics to focus on particular aspects of a work they consider important.
A well-organized guide to scholarly Web resources in the Humanities - note two entries: Literature (in English) and Literatures (Other Than English). Developed and maintained by Alan Liu and others in the English Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature by 
Critical Theory Today: a user-friendly guide by 