How To Read Literature

Product Description

What makes a work of literature good or bad? How freely can the reader interpret it? Could a nursery rhyme like Baa Baa Black Sheep be full of concealed loathing, resentment, & aggression? In this accessible, delightfully entertaining book, Terry Eagleton addresses these intriguing questions & a host of others. ” How to Read Literature” is the book of choice for students new to the study of literature & for all other readers interested in deepening their understanding & enriching their reading experience. In a series of brilliant analyses, Eagleton shows how to read with due attention to tone, rhythm, texture, syntax, allusion, ambiguity, & other formal aspects of literary works. He also examines broader questions of character, plot, narrative, the creative imagination, the meaning of fictionality, & the tension between what works of literature say & what they show. Unfailingly authoritative & cheerfully opinionated, the author provides useful commentaries on classicism, Romanticism, modernism, & postmodernism along with spellbinding insights into a huge range of authors, from Shakespeare & Jane Austen to Samuel Beckett & J. K. Rowling.