Skip to Main Content

ENG 102 Honors (Fall 2014): Literary Theory

Literary Reference

Lisa Simpson - The Bell Jar

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

  • The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. 1966. [422.03 O58o]
  • MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. [Reference Desk 808.066 M689m7] also available for circulation.

Print Resources

Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature - by Wilfred Guerin; Earle Labor; Lee Morgan; Jeanne Reesman; John Willingham
Call Number: 801.95 H236G5 2005

Ooffers a valuable combination of theory and practice, introducing and applying the most useful contemporary approaches. Thoroughly updated and revised for this edition, the text presents a variety of ways to interpret a work,ranging from historical/biographical and moral/philosophical to feminisms and cultural studies.

Beginning Theory Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory -by  Peter Berry
Call Number: 801.95 B281b2

Beginning theory has been helping students navigate through the thickets of literary and cultural theory for well over a decade now. This new and expanded third edition continues to offer students and readers the best one-volume introduction to the field.

Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide - by Lois Tyson
Call Number: 801.95 T994c

This new edition of the classic guide offers a thorough and accessible introduction to contemporary critical theory. It provides in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today: feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, reader-response theory, new criticism, structuralism and semiotics, deconstruction, new historicism, cultural criticism, lesbian/gay/queer theory, African-American criticism, and postcolonial criticism.

Twentieth-century literary movements dictionary Twentieth-century literary movements dictionary
Call number: Ref 809.91 T971

The first volume of this set is a dictionary arrangement of articles on literary movements, with articles treating movements in different countries. Bibliographies accompany each article.

Suggested Websites

  • Purdue University's OWL site on Literary Theory
    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.

  • IPL2 Online Literary Criticism Collection
    The ipl2 Literary Criticism Collection contains critical and biographical websites about authors and their works that can be browsed by author, by title, or by nationality and literary period.

  • Literary Resources on the Net
    Search or browse this extensive directory of literary web sites created and maintained by Jack Lynch of Rutgers University.

  • VoS - Voice of the Shuttle
    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.