How to Write Critical Essays [Paperback]

David B. Pirie (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415045339 | ISBN-13: 978-0415045339 | Publication Date: August 26, 1985 | Edition: New Ed

This invaluable book offers the student of literature detailed advice on the entire process of critical essay writing, from first facing the question right through to producing a fair copy for final submission to the teacher.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; New Ed edition (August 26, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415045339
• ISBN-13: 978-0415045339
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,610,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rejoyce, December 23, 2005

By 

Conan the Librarian (Incognito CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Write Critical Essays (Paperback)

'How to Write Critical Essays; A Guide for Students of Literature' is a visionary book that has application to a number of fields; art, the novel, poetry, science, thesis preparation. D.B. Pirie has mastered the English language and knows its persuasive power. Although his subject is complex, his methodology is relatively simple. As he writes on page 12, 'The key to writing critical essays is to appear erudite without actually knowing anything. You don't even need to read a book in order to produce a substantive critique. All you need are a number of words which are meaningless in themselves and which are even more incomprehensible when you string them together. Take, for example, these coma-inducing gems: abaxial, chatoyant, ferity, kerygmatic, prelapsarian, redintegrate, fimbrial and synteresis. Now arrange them in such a way as to render the reader admiringly agog, like this (applied, for example, to an essay on James Joyce)...

Joyce's abaxial, albeit chatoyant, development of character in 'Ulysses' redintegrates, rather than sustains, the prelapsarian notion of ego as the central motivation towards synteresis. This kerygmatic involution is fimbrial in both its form and ferity.

I guarantee that no university professor or magazine editor would reject this as balderdash for fear of appearing ignorant. Let's face it... it's worked for Robert Hughes all these years.'

D.B. Pirie has produced a brilliant, chalastic pimelitis that deserves universal ophiasis.