Literary Theory

This book seeks to introduce readers of literature to some of the most important schools of literary theory and criticism in the 20th Century that have had significant impact on the study of literature. In each chapter, we explore and investigate the philosophical framework and the intellectual background informing the school in question as well as its main figures, its central tenets and main interpretative strategies. We look in particular for the distinctive perspective of each school regarding the definition of the nature of the relationship between text and reality, the nature of the relationship between the text and its author (the question of authorship); and the nature of the relationship linking literary theories to each other.