Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66154 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 488 pages

From the Back Cover
This new edition of the classic guide offers a thorough and accessible introduction to contemporary critical theory. It provides in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today: feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, reader-response theory, new criticism, structuralism and semiotics, deconstruction, new historicism, cultural criticism, lesbian/gay/queer theory, African-American criticism, and postcolonial criticism. The chapters provide an extended explanation of each theory, using examples from everyday life, popular culture, and literary texts; a list of specific questions critics who use that theory ask about literary texts; an interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory; a list of questions for further practice to guide readers in applying each theory to different literary works; and a bibliography of primary and secondary works for further reading. This book can be used as the only text in a course or as a precursor to the study of primary theoretical works. It motivates readers by showing them what critical theory can offer in terms of their practical understanding of literary texts and in terms of their personal understanding of themselves and the world in which they live. Both engaging and rigorous, it is a "how-to" book for undergraduate and graduate students new to critical theory and for college professors who want to broaden their repertoire of critical approaches to literature.

Customer Reviews

a model of lucidity and comprehensiveness
This work is true to its sub-title: "a User-Friendly Guide." Most textbooks on critical theory are exercises in jargon and (self-) mystification. Little is made clear except the notion that talk about literature is the preserve of an initiate community. Tyson's book is a refreshing break with usual practices. First, because the author knows that to understand something means that one can restate it in other terms, terms that make difficult concepts available to a large audience. Second, because the author is a superb practical critic who ends each chapter of the book with an application of the theory considered to Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY. Each interpretation is illustrative, original, and provocative. Two purposes are thereby served: (1) readers get a clear sense of how each theory under discussion "works" when theories are joined with careful, sensitive reading rather than dogmatic application (as is so often the case); (2) a larger understanding of Fitzgerald's novel is evolved and through it an understanding of how a variety of critical theories might be usefully combined. Again, this is a nice contrast to the usual practice in the profession--where most professors latch onto one theory, use it dogmatically to generate "interpretations," and then oppose their theory to other theories. Tyson's book patiently constructs another posssibility: that competence in many theories is desirable because it offers us the possibility of developing an understanding of literature that builds toward a genuine community of interpreters. I should add that a further quality of the book is the number and range of theories that Tyson presents--14. Most texts offer at best 4 or 5. The energy and work that has gone into this text is remarkable. Tyson has read widely--and sympathetically. She is never taken in by jargon or guilty of it. What we have here is a work of uncommon clarity--the best introductory text of its kind, a work suitable for a wide range of graduate and undergraduate courses in theory and its applications.

Lois Tyson's book is a godsend.
From teacher to teacher: Gretchen S. Cline, Muskegon Community College professor of English. I've used Tyson's book for the introduction to literature and composition course that I teach at an open admissions community college in Michigan.

Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide (1999) is a godsend. Professor Tyson's book is the answer to what I've long envisioned as the ideal reference book for teachers wanting to introduce their students to critical theory, to increase their repertoire of literary "readings," and to implement diversity issues in the college classroom. This much needed reference guide has helped me to better understand and apply different critical approaches to literature, as I prepare, create, and develop meaningful classroom activities and writing assignments involving analysis and reading comprehension for both new and seasoned students. Indeed, Tyson's succinct overview of the different issues each theory raises along with the extremely helpful questions at the end of each chapter is truly user-friendly. Specifically, her book has helped me to raise issues and create questions for such works of literature as Ibsen's A Doll's House, Miller's Death of a Salesman, Wilson's The Piano Lesson, Bambara's "The Lesson," Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," and Chopin's "Desiree's Baby" to name a few.

While some of my colleagues might think that "this critical theory stuff" goes over the heads of community college students, frequently I encounter students who are curious and want to know more about "those critical essays" that already appear in their "introduction to literature" anthologies. In fact, most of the "introduction to literature" anthologies that I've reviewed contain cursory, vague, and overly complicated excerpts from a wide range of "established" academic critics. Tyson's book helps students and teachers create a "cultural" context for the different theories with language that is accessible to those new to theory. Furthermore, as a pedagogical tool, Tyson's book helps teachers help students to make connections between different kinds of value/belief systems that underlie the way they interpret literature and, more importantly, how they think about the world.

Honest and straightforward, the tone of Tyson's book reflects a teacher who loves teaching and is thoroughly dedicated to her students; I will be forever grateful to her for sharing this huge and extremely important undertaking. Any community college, university, and even high school instructor wishing to incorporate lively discussions, multicultural/diversity sensitivity, and creative assignments into the classroom will benefit from Tyson's phenomenal book. You owe it to your students to read this one.

This would make an excellent text for a Philosophy class.
This is an amazing work. Prof. Tyson brings together, in one volume, the many seemingly conflicting currents in the difficult field of critical theory and shows, more often than not, how each can complement others and deepen our reading of a work of art. This approach is brilliantly illustrated by use of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I will certainly use this book the next time I teach a course in philosophy and literature. It is written in a style accessible to undergraduates as well as graduate students and, quite honestly, most faculty I know could benefit from reading it carefully. I recommend it unreservedly to anyone interested in this field--and that, I think, is a lot of people.