Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Reading for meaning 1. practical criticism Chapter 2: Reading for form I. formalism and early structuralism, 1914-1960 Chapter 3: Reading for form II. french structuralism, 1950-1975 Chapter 4: Political Reading. the 1970s and 1980s Chapter 5: The Poststructuralist Revolution. Derrida, deconstruction and postmodernism Chapter 6: Postructuralism continued. Foucault, Lacan, french femenism Chapter 7: Literature and culture. The new historicism and cultural imperialism Chapter 8: Postcolonial criticism and theory. Chapter 9: Sexuality, literature and cultural materialism. Chapter 10: Ecocriticism.

Reviews

Clear, vigorous and often creatively provocative, Hans Bertens's historical overview of western literary theory is one of the very best introductions currently available.