A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature

A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, Sixth Edition, offers a valuable combination of theory and practice, introducing and applying the most useful contemporary approaches.
Thoroughly updated and revised for this edition, the text presents a variety of ways to interpret a work, ranging from historical/biographical and moral/philosophical to feminisms and cultural studies. It applies these diverse approaches to the same six classic works-"To His Coy Mistress,"* "Young Goodman Brown,"* "Everyday Use,"* Hamlet, Huckleberry Finn, and Frankenstein-showing how each approach produces different types of insights.
The Sixth Edition includes three new chapters: Materialisms (Chapter 4), Literature and Linguistics (Chapter 5), and Postcolonial Studies (Chapter 10), with new readings of the six core texts; these chapters present the latest major theory and criticism, including ecocriticism, Literary Darwinism, third-wave feminism, and black maternal theory. Linking analysis of images to analysis of literature, the authors have also expanded their discussions of film and visual texts.
Other new features of this edition include summaries of key points at the end of each chapter and a glossary of literary terms at the back of the book. A companion website at www.oup.com/us/guerin features expanded discussions of theories and texts, sample essay assignments, self-tests, PowerPoint presentations, and helpful links.
*Included in appendix.
MESSAGE: An essential guide to the most useful critical approaches, featuring accessible sample analyses of the same six classic works.

Wilfred L. Guerin, Professor Emeritus of English, Louisiana State University

Earle Labor, George A. Wilson Professor of American Literature, Centenary College

Lee Morgan, Professor Emeritus of English, Centenary College

Jeanne C. Reesman, Ashbel Smith Professor of English, University of Texas at San Antonio

John R. Willingham, Late, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Kansas