Literary Criticism. 6 classic books in pdf (Oxford, Cambridge)
BOOK 1
Peter Ekegren: The Reading of Theoretical Texts. A Critique of Criticism, Routledge, 1999
Description:
Since the structuralist debates of the 1970s the field of textual analysis has largely remained the preserve of literary theorists. Social scientists, while accepting that observation is theory laden have tended to take the meaning of texts as given and to explain differences of interpretation either in terms of ignorance or bias. In this important contribution to methodological debate, Peter Ekegren uses developments within literary criticism, philosophy and critical theory to reclaim this study for the social sciences and to illuminate the ways in which different readings of a single text are created and defended.
BOOK 2
Waler Jost & Wendy Olmsted (Eds): A Companion to Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism, Blackwell, 2004
Description:
A Companion to Rhetoric offers the first major survey in two decades of the field of rhetorical studies and of the practice of rhetorical theory and criticism across a range of disciplines.
BOOK 3
Pamela Barmash: Homicide in the Biblical World, Cambridge University Press, 2005
Description:
Analyzing the treatment of homicide in the Hebrew Bible, this study demonstrates that it is directly linked to the social structure and religion of ancient Israel. Pamela Barmash reconstructs biblical law from both legal texts and narrative texts and analyzes the law collections and documents of actual legal cases from the ancient Near East.
Review
"...a fine scholarly endeavor suited for other critical scholars and graduate students...addresses many interesting topics connected to laws concerning homicide." - Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Robert Karl Gnuse, Loyola University
BOOK 4
Paul Ricoeur: Time And Narrative , The University of Chicago Press, 1984, 433 pp [Complete 3 volumes].
Description:
Time and Narrative builds on Paul Ricoeur's earlier analysis, in The Rule of Metaphor, of semantic innovation at the level of the sentence. Ricoeur here examines the creation of meaning at the textual level, with narrative rather than metaphor as the ruling concern.
Ricoeur finds a "healthy circle" between time and narrative: time is humanized to the extent that it portrays temporal experience. Ricoeur proposes a theoretical model of this circle using Augustine's theory of time and Aristotle's theory of plot and, further, develops an original thesis of the mimetic function of narrative. He concludes with a comprehensive survey and critique of modern discussions of historical knowledge, understanding, and writing from Aron and Mandelbaum in the late 1930s to the work of the Annales school and that of Anglophone philosophers of history of the 1960s and 1970s.
BOOK 5
Edward Rothstein, Herbert Muschamp & Martin Marty : Visions of Utopia, Oxford University Press, 2003
Description:
From the sex-free paradise of the Shakers to the worker's paradise of Marx, utopian ideas seem to have two things in common--they all are wonderfully plausible at the start and they all end up as disasters. In Visions of Utopia, three leading cultural critics--Edward Rothstein, Martin Marty, and Herbert Muschamp--look at the history of utopian thinking, exploring why they fail and why they are still worth pursuing.
Edward Rothstein, New York Times cultural critic, contends that every utopia is really a dystopia--a disaster in the making--one that overlooks the nature of humanity and the impossibilities of paradise. He traces the ideal in politics and technology and suggests that only in art--and especially in music--does the desire for utopia find satisfaction. Martin Marty examines several models of utopia--from Thomas More's to a 1960s experimental city that he helped to plan--to show that, even though utopias can never be realized, we should not be too quick to condemn them. They can express dimensions of the human spirit that might otherwise be stifled and can plant ideas that may germinate in more realistic and practical soil. And Herbert Muschamp, the New York Times architectural critic, looks at Utopianism as exemplified in two different ways: the Buddhist tradition and the work of visionary Viennese architect Adolph Loos.
Utopian thinking embodies humanity's noblest impulses, yet it can lead to horrors such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Regime. In Visions of Utopia, these leading thinkers offer an intriguing look at the paradoxes of paradise.
BOOK 6
Terry Eagleton: Literary Theory. An Introduction, Blackwell, 2nd Ed, 1996
Description:
A quarter of a century on from its original publication, Literary Theory: An Introduction still conjures the subversion, excitement and exoticism that characterized theory through the 1960s and 70s, when it posed an unprecedented challenge to the literary establishment. Eagleton has added a new preface to this anniversary edition to address more recent developments in literary studies, including what he describes as "the growth of a kind of anti-theory", and the idea that literary theory has been institutionalized. Insightful and enlightening, Literary Theory: An Introduction remains the essential guide to the field.
* 25th Anniversary Edition of Terry Eagleton's classic introduction to literary theory
* First published in 1983, and revised in 1996 to include material on developments in feminist and cultural theory
* Has served as an inspiration to generations of students and teachers
* Continues to function as arguably the definitive undergraduate textbook on literary theory
* Reissue includes a new foreword by Eagleton himself, reflecting on the impact and enduring success of the book, and on developments in literary theory since it was first published
