Books in the Longman Critical Readers series

This is a collection of recent critical writing on Edmund Spenser. The essays cover the whole of Spenser's work, from such early literary experiments as "The Shepeardes Calendar" to his unfinished crowning work "The Faerie Queene". A review of critical responses to Spenser is also included.

This text consists of various contributions to such areas of study as: interaction between text and reader; reader-response criticism; toward a feminist theory of reading; reading as poaching; and "Wilde's Hard Labour and the Birth of Gay Reading".

Patricia Ingham's reader is designed to accompany study of the works of the Bronte sisters. It shows how their writings engage with the major issues that dominate 20th century theoretical work.

The outlines of contemporary critical theory are now often taught as a standard feature of a degree in literary studies. This text aims to explore the theoretical issues and conflicts embodied in the essays selected and locates areas of disagreement between positions.

Modern developments in critical theory and the emergence of new media have put in question traditional ways of evaluating genres. This anthology charts these developments drawing on the work of Bakhtin, Gennette and Derrida.

A critical anthology of some important studies by those critics who have influenced textual studies of Shakespeare's history plays. These essays reclaim the plays for feminism and give insights into the invention of Britain itself.

Provides a collection of theoretical and literary essays on Swift's work. The text places an emphasis on his Anglo-Irishness, which, it argues, is a key area in understanding his life and works. Reference is also made to Swift's gender relations and his female imitators.

Postcolonial theory is a relatively new area in critical contemporary studies, having its foundations in the study of colonial discourse, neo-colonialism and Commonwealth literature. This reader contains 13 essays focusing on colonial discourse.

This collection of critical essays on William Blake covers a wide range to include Marxist, new historicist, feminist and psychological approaches. Between them, the essays explore the most significant areas and moments of his career as poet and also print maker, illustrator and visionary artist.

Provides examples of the literary criticism which has emerged from the conjunction between psychoanalysis and post-structuralism. The book defines concepts and methods by tracing the role the story of Oedipus has played in the development of and psychoanalytic theory and criticism.

The outlines of contemporary critical theory are now often taught as a standard feature of a degree in literary studies. This text aims to explore the theoretical issues and conflicts embodied in the essays selected and locates areas of disagreement between positions.

Narratology is a rapidly growing field in the humanities. This text provides an overview of, and introduction to, the subject, as well as assessing recent developments across a variety of disciplines. It stresses the mutual influences of narratology and deconstruction, feminism and media studies.

The outlines of contemporary critical theory are now often taught as a standard feature of a degree in literary studies. This text aims to explore the theoretical issues and conflicts embodied in the essays selected and locates areas of disagreement between positions.

This compilation of feminist criticism includes contributions from 12 authors who comment on such themes as sexual politics and male feminism, in literary texts.

Tess Cosslett charts the rediscovery of Victorian women poets including Emily Brontes, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti by femine critics.

This collection of essays on Andrew Marvell examines his poems including "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn"and looks at his writings about Cromwell and Republican Civil War culture.

The outlines of contemporary critical theory are now often taught as a standard feature of a degree in literary studies. This text aims to explore the theoretical issues and conflicts embodied in selected poems of Percy Shelley and locate areas of disagreement between positions.

The fin de siecle, the period 1880-1914, long associated with decadence and with the literary movements of aestheticism and symbolism, has received renewed critical interest recently. This book introduces fin de siecle cultural studies and commentates on aspects of current critical debate.

This work demonstrates the diversity and the literary and historical significance of early women's writing. The author applies feminist critical approaches to the central issues raised by early women's writing and considers the interaction of gender with class and race in the period.

This collection of major critical readings presents the best of contemprary literary theory and criticism on Joseph Conrad. The chapters cover different critical approaches, each containing two or three critical excerpts which offer contrasting and complementary accounts of the fiction.

This text covers the most significant areas of recent work on Tennyson, linking feminist and gender studies with deconstrcutive, psychoanalytic and linguistic attention. The essays in the book reflect a range of modes of critical inquiry compelling in themselves.

This text contains sections covering the definition of metafiction, historiographic metafiction and the writer and critic. It includes selected readings of metafiction.

This judicious selection of key works by Stephen Heath, Fredrick Jameson, Laura Mulvey, Mary Ann Doanne and others, represents some of the most important contemporary writing about film.

The outlines of contemporary critical theory are now often taught as a standard feature of a degree in literary studies. This text aims to explore the theoretical issues and conflicts embodied in the essays selected and locates areas of disagreement between positions.

Explores the changes that have occurred in the interpretation of English Renaissance poetry in the 20 years up to 1998. The introduction looks at how critical approaches have transformed traditional accounts of literary history by analyzing, amongst other issues, the role of poetry in nationalism.

This volume provides ten essays on Dante. it puts the "Divine Comedy" - Dante's record of a journey to Hell, Purgatory and Paradise - into context for the modern reader and covers topics such as Dante's allegory, his relationship to classical and modern poetry and his treatment of love.

Steve Ellis shows how the Canterbury Tales has been radically opened up by modern critical theory. The book provides an introduction to a wide range of theoretical approaches to Chaucer, including the feminist, Lacanian, Bakhtinian, deconstructive, semiotic and anthropological schools.

Provides a critical account of the life and works of Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe is studied as a man who staged the birth of the modern author, and for his representations of sexuality and homosexuality. This text portrays a wide range of critical approaches and provides theoretical grounding.

Covering the work of Samuel Beckett, this text brings together a collection of writings on Beckett from the 1950s and 1960s with critical readings from the 1980s and 1990s. It covers the whole range of his creative work.