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The third edition of this leading text provides a comprehensive guide to literary study. Emphasis has been placed on contextualizing literature and this updated version takes these changes into account by incorporating more material on historical and cultural contexts as well as in-depth discussions on novels, drama and poetry.>
List of contents
Introduction
PART 1: THE NOVEL
Stories
Characters
Narration
Plot
Settings
The Scope of the Novel
PART 2: DRAMA
Familiar Drama
The Language of the Stage
Plots and Actions
Characters
Audience
Watching and Studying
PART 3: POETRY
Valuing, Performing, Hearing
What Poets Make
What Poets Think
What Poets Do: Words and Meanings
Poetic Shapes and Sounds
The Work of Poets
PART 4: GENRE
Classification
Tragedy
Comedy
Epic
Lyric
Satire
Romance
Gothic
Pastoral
PART 5: CONTEXT
The Past
Religion and the Bible
Classical Civilisation
Books and Ideas
The Arts
Society
PART 6: INTERPRETATION
Discovering Meanings
Internal Interpretation: Narratology, Grammar and Genre
Internal Interpretation: Formalism
Theorists and Literary Features
Debating Interpretations
External Interpretation: Social
External Interpretation: Feminism
External Interpretation: Psychological
External Interpretation: Ideas
Issues in Interpretation
PART 7: THEMES
The Scope of Literature
The Living World
The Four Seasons
The Earth
Aspects of Nature
Ideas about Nature
Buildings
Mortality
The Human Mind and Society
Love
War
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.
About the author
RICHARD GILL teaches English at Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College, Leicester, UK, and teaches adults at the University of Leicester, UK.
