Publisher's Synopsis
"The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory gives a comprehensive coverage of every aspect of literary theory, both traditional and contemporary. Around 180 full-length essays written by a wide range of experts and distinguished scholars explore the problems, the concepts, and the methodologies that arise when we discuss literary texts. They ask what systems of value go into making this category, separating "literary" from other kinds of text or other language games; what a "text" is, what kinds of text there are, and who decides; what it means to "read" a text: to understand it literally, to react to it emotionally, to look for broader structures of meaning, to understand it in relation to the context in which it was written or the contexts in which it was later understood; who "we" are who read; how reading relates to writing, and who or what the author of a text is and what authority they have over its reception; what background unde
