ABSTRACT

Studying Literature in English provides the ideal point of entry for students of English Literature. This book is an accessible guide for Literature students around the world. This book:

  • Grounds literature and the study of literature throughout by referencing a selection of well-known novels, plays and poems
  • Examines the central questions that readers ask when confronting literary texts, and shows how these make literary theory meaningful and necessary
  • Links British, American and postcolonial literature into a coherent whole
  • Discusses film as literature and provides the basic conceptual tools in order to study film within a literature-course framework
  • Places particular emphasis on interdisciplinarity by examining the connections between the study of literature and other disciplines
  • Provides an annotated list of further reading

From principal literary genres, periods and theory, to strategies for reading, research and essay-writing, Dominic Rainsford provides an engaging introduction to the most important aspects of studying literature in English. This book is invaluable reading for anyone studying literature in English.

part I|19 pages

Beginnings

chapter 1|5 pages

Good morrow

chapter 3|5 pages

Canons

part II|49 pages

Form and genre

chapter 4|11 pages

Poetry

chapter 5|9 pages

The thing which is not

chapter 6|14 pages

Prose fiction

chapter 7|13 pages

Plays and films

part III|48 pages

Periods and movements

chapter 8|14 pages

Medieval and early modern

chapter 10|15 pages

From 1900 to the present

part IV|42 pages

Positions, identities, ideas

chapter 11|18 pages

The place of literature

chapter 12|22 pages

Literary theory

part V|18 pages

Over to you

chapter 13|8 pages

Primary and secondary sources

chapter 14|8 pages

Reading, research, writing