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Some Help with critical theory.

I'm doing A2 Lit and my teacher has suggested we start reading some critical theory to incoporate into our coursework.
I've tried the internet but there's a lot of suggested titles
and I'm not sure which ones to pursue.

I'm looking for crtitical theory on Feminism,Marxism and Psychoanalytic.
Any suggested titles would be much appreciated! :smile:

Reply 1

MSB

The introductions to literary theory, anthologies, or short theory texts will be useful.

Awh. cheers!

Get hold of an introduction - the most commonly used is Peter Barry's Beginning Theory.

Reply 4

evantej

I have never read many of those introduction-type texts (I prefer to read original texts as far as possible), but I can vouch for Palgrave's Literary Terms and Criticism (2002). In terms of (presumed) quality and recognition, though I have not read the text myself, I would stick to Culler at this point since he is someone your teacher is likely to have heard of at the very least.

Reply 5

missygeorgia

Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory seems to generally be seen as The One.

Reply 6

trachimbrod

Peter Barry's Beginning Theory is great, as is Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory. There is a difference between critical theory and literary theory - for more of the political aspects of those things you mentioned, marxism and whatever, the graphic guide to critical theory is really good, if a little tacky. You can get singular ones for marxism, freud and feminism too.

Reply 7

andyyy

Original post by missygeorgia

Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory seems to generally be seen as The One.

The blatant Marxist bias gets on your nerves after a while, though. Yale have video recordings of lectures (as well as assignments, reading lists, exam papers, etc) for a course on literary theory posted on their website. You can see it here, it's really good if you have the patience to watch the videos and can get your hands on The Critical Tradition (which is the required text for the course).