Product Description

This text has established itself as a successful and popular introductory student guide. This fully revised and expanded third edition offers practical help and guidance. It shows the reader how to approach novels, plays and poems, and includes chapters on themes, characters, structure, style, irony and analysis. In addition, sections on writing essays, how to revise, and how to use the critics make this book an invaluable companion for anyone beginning to study English literature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #318207 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-31
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

About the Author
NICHOLAS MARSH teaches English at Francis Holland School, Regent's Park. He is the author of many books, including titles on Shakespeare, Jane Austin, Emily Bronte, Blake, Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.

Customer Reviews

Good Start to Literature
(This review is for the 1987 edition.)

This guide provides basic study techniques for students of English in the UK. The first part covers analysis; how to find themes in a work, how characters support a theme, the general structure of a story, the use of style and imagery, and how to study irony. The second part describes how to compose and write essays during an English examination.

The language in the book is kept simple and there is hardly any jargon. In each chapter, a method for studying each topic is first described and then a worked example is demonstrated. No particular interpretation is pushed and the student is encouraged to read works and come to their own conclusions. All the techniques are then brought together in the chapters on essay writing.

Although aimed at students, this guide would help anyone who is interested in gaining a better understanding of literature.

Kam-Hung Soh, 24 November 2005.

Good Start to Literature
This guide provides basic study techniques for students of English in the UK. The first part covers analysis; how to find themes in a work, how characters support a theme, the general structure of a story, the use of style and imagery, and how to study irony. The second part describes how to compose and write essays during an English examination.

The language in the book is kept simple and there is hardly any jargon. In each chapter, a method for studying each topic is first described and then a worked example is demonstrated. No particular interpretation is pushed and the student is encouraged to read works and come to their own conclusions. All the techniques are then brought together in the chapters on essay writing.

Although aimed at students, this guide would help anyone who is interested in gaining a better understanding of literature.

Kam-Hung Soh, 24 November 2005.