Customer Reviews

Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader (2nd Edition)

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This "Reader" is a collection of some of the most influential and famous essays, or exerpts of larger works, by critics of the past 100 years. The works that are anthologized include: Ferdinand de Saussure's "Nature of the Linguistic Sign," Gerard Genette's "Structuralism and Literary Criticism," Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author," Edward Said's "Crisis in Orientalism," and even Umberto Eco's "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage." As far I can tell, the collection begins after New Criticism, although there are essays from the Russian Formalists. If you're interested in Structuralism/Semiology, Deconstructionism, Reader-response, Feminism, and Cultural Studies, then this anthology will work well for you.

This book is extremely useful to readers who are interested in literary criticism, and who do not necessarily want to do library searches to find the particular essay. The short biography of the author, as well as the "cross-reference" notes at the end of the biography, are helpful too. A similar anthology is *Literary Theory: An Anthology* edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, which also collects the highlights of the theorists's work. However, I prefer Professor Lodge's book because 1) it more engaging, 2) it is smaller and more manageable.

---------------Theorists who are listed-------------------

Ferdinand de Saussure's "Nature of the Linguistic Sign"
Victor Shlovsky
Roman Jacobson
Gerard Genette
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Derrida
Mikhail Bakhtin
Tzvetan Todorov
Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author," "Textual Analysis: Poe's 'Valdemar'"
Michel Foucault's "What is an Author?"
Wolfgang Iser's "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach"
Julia Kristeva
Harold Bloom
E D Hirsch Jr
M H Abrams
J Hillis Miller
Helene Cixous
Edward Said
Stanley Fish
Elaine Showalter
Paul De Man
Fredric Jameson
Terry Eagleton's "Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism"
Catherine Belsey
Geoffrey Hartman
Juliet Mitchell
Colin MacCabe
Umberto Eco

This is by far one of the most useful textbooks I have used. I got it for a class a year ago and have used it as a supplement for nearly every class and paper since. The presentation makes the high-strung contemporary theory very accessible and the editors have done well to include a very broad scope of topics and positions, while maintaining a manageable size. It is very possible to read all of the essays, and each is very salient. I'm sure the 3rd edition (which has recently been released) only improves on all counts, most significantly in terms of including more and more contemporary critics. However, it is not necessary to shell out the extra $40 or so for a copy of that 3rd edition, or a brand new copy of of 2nd, when a used but immaculate 2nd edition will cost about $10 with shipping. The 2nd edition offers a very comprehensive--but not over-exhaustive--reading of trends in contemporary theory. I would recommend it for anyone interested in becoming familiar with critical theory, postmodernisms, contemporary literary theory etc; it is very, very worth it, especially if you want to be able to investigate literary philosophies and add an otherwise unavailable depth to your present studies.