Preface ; Acknowledgments ; 1. Introduction ; 2. New Criticism ; Before New Criticism ; How to Interpret: Key Concepts for New Critical Interpretation ; Historicizing the New Criticism: Rethinking Literary Unity ; The Intentional Fallacy and the Affective Fallacy ; How to Interpret: A New Critical Example ; The Influence of New Criticism ; Further Reading ; 3. Structuralism ; Key Concepts in Structuralism ; How to Interpret: Structuralism in Cultural and Literary Studies ; The Death of the Author ; How to Interpret: The Detective Novel ; Structuralism, Formalism, and Literary History ; The Structuralist Study of Narrative: Narratology ; How to Interpret: Focalization and Free Indirect Discourse ; Narrative Syntax, and Metaphor and Metonymy ; Further Reading ; 4. Deconstruction ; Key Concepts in Deconstruction ; How to Interpret: A Deconstructionist Example ; Writing, Speech, and Differance ; Deconstruction beyond Derrida ; Deconstruction, Essentialism, and Identity ; How to Interpret: Further Deconstructionist Examples ; Further Reading ; 5. Psychoanalysis ; Clinical Psychoanalysis ; Key Concepts in Psychoanalysis: The Psychoanalytic Understanding of the Mind ; Sigmund Freud ; How to Interpret: Models of Psychoanalytic Interpretation ; From the Interpretation of Dreams to the Interpretation of Literature ; How to Interpret: Further Psychoanalytic Examples ; Jacques Lacan ; How to Interpret: A Lacanian Example ; Further Reading ; 6. Feminism ; What Is Feminism? ; Early Feminist Criticism ; Sex and Gender ; Feminisms? ; How to Interpret: Feminist Examples ; Feminism and Visual Pleasure ; Intersectionality and the Interdisciplinary Ethos of Contemporary Feminism ; Further Reading ; 7. Queer Studies ; Key Concepts in Queer Studies ; How to Interpret: A Queer Studies Example ; Queer Studies and History ; Outing: Writers, Characters, and the Literary Closet ; Homosociality and Homosexual Panic ; Queer of Color Critique ; How to Interpret: Another Queer Studies Example ; Questions that Queer Studies Critics Ask ; Further Reading ; 8. Marxism ; Key Concepts in Marxism ; Lukacs, Gramsci, and Marxist Interpretations of Culture ; Contemporary Marxism, Ideology, and Agenc ; How to Interpret: An Example from Popular Culture ; How to Interpret: Further Marxist Examples ; Further Reading ; 9. Historicism and Cultural Studies ; New Historicism ; How to Interpret: Historicist Examples ; Michel Foucault ; Cultural Studies ; How to Interpret: A Cultural Studies Example ; Cultural Studies, Historicism, and Literature ; Further Reading ; 10. Postcolonial and Race Studies ; Postcolonialism ; From Orientalism to Deconstruction: Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak ; How to Interpret: A Postcolonial Studies Example ; Race Studies ; How to Interpret: Postcolonial and Race Studies Examples ; Further Reading ; 11. Reader Response ; Ideal, Implied, and Actual Readers ; Structuralist Models of Reading and Communication ; Aesthetic Judgment, Interpretive Communities, and Resisting Readers ; Reception Theory and Reception History ; Readers and the New Technologies ; Further Reading ; 12. Recent and Emerging Developments: Ecocriticism and Disability Studies ; Works Cited ; Photographic Credits ; Index

How to Interpret Literature takes on an immense and formidable task- presenting to students the corpus of twentieth-century literary theory and its differing schools, conflicts, and developments-and it succeeds with a minimum of fuss, grandstanding, ponderousness at synthesizing all of this in one handy volume. Parker's sensitive, responsive, measured, ethically minded, and dazzlingly well-informed approach makes theory lucid, accessible, and inviting while also acknowledging that it is an irreducibly complex, simultaneously graspable intellectual project that demands a lifetime's worth of repeated inquiry. * David Greven, University of South Carolina *A clear, highly readable introduction to critical theory with plenty of fine explanations and illuminating examples drawn from literature, film, and music. * Paul Klemp, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh *How to Interpret Literature is a clearly written and accessible guide to critical theory for students of English Studies. In this book students will find a friendly and readable guide to complex and often intimidating theoretical concepts. * Richard Zumkhawala-Cook, Shippensburg University *