Literary and Cultural Theory: From Basic Principles to Advanced Applications

This was a terrific book for students of literary criticism. I myself went to a university that was completely devoted to deconstructionism, except for the South American department, which was heavily Marxist. You could go there for years and never hear a word about any other kind of literary criticism. This book really enhanced my education--and no, I didn't order it for a class. I just needed to know more about other schools of thought. This book explained them very well, and then gave lengthy exerpts of the texts that were suited to this kind of criticism. Because it gave a preview of the whole school of thought, then a complelling passage, then questions and analysis following each passage, I could really understand how the each form of criticism was applied to the relevant texts. No wonder I didn't care for deconstructionism (to put it as nicely as possible). Turns out I'm a semiotics gal.