What Books Are Good In Terms Of Literary Criticism?
Posted on | July 12, 2010 |
I would like recommendations on books to read that will help me understand literature better. I read a great deal of fiction and feel that if I am to think about what I read I will get more out of it.
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3 Responses to “What Books Are Good In Terms Of Literary Criticism?”
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July 12th, 2010 @ 4:44 pm
Moby Dick-Melville
Of Human Bondage-Maugham
Crime and Punishment-Dostoyevsky
Suite Fraincaise-Nemerovsky
East of Eden-Steinbeck
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting-Kundera-or, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Life and Times of Michael K.-Coetzee
The Great Gatsby-Fitzgerald
The Wife of Martin Guerre ( novella )-Janet Lewis
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man-Joyce
Look Homeward Angel-T. Wolfe
The Trial-Kafka
Sister Carrie-Dreiser
War and Peace-Tolstoy
I hope this helps. I would start with the novella, or The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. To me, Moby Dick is the most dense, difficult, yet, ultimately fascinating read.
These books are true literature. After reading and formulating your own thoughts, I would read a critique by well known literary critic ( Harold Bloom comes to mind ). This will be more beneficial than reading literary criticism books.
July 12th, 2010 @ 5:05 pm
Well, it depends. There are the major (and very dense and challenging) aesthetic works, like Aristotle’s Poetics, Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, and Sartre’s What is Literature?, to name just a few (Sartre’s not as major in literary theory, but I like him), but these might be a bit intense if this is your first excursion into literary criticism.
I might suggest Jonathan Culler’s “Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction,” although he comes from a distinctly modern perspective. There are several anthologies of important critical texts available as well.
What you have to keep in mind, is that literary criticism is not the WAY to study literature, but rather a series of perspectives. There are any number of separate branches (marxist, poststructuralist, semiotics, post-colonialism, just to name a few), each with their own approach, terms, an conceptions of how literature works.
The best way to learn how approach literature in the kind of general terms you’re talking about is just to read it and, in the beginning, having someone there (a professor ideally) to guide your reading and steer you straight. Otherwise, I would simply read whatever it is you’re reading, collect your thoughts on it, and then read what’s been written about it. You’ll see what they picked up that you didn’t (and maybe also where you went too far), how they got to their interpretation, and maybe even discover places where you feel you got it right where they misstepped (there are plenty of botched analyses by wonderful critics).
Also, all of this, ultimately, is going to depend on what it is exactly that you’re reading. Genres and forms all have their own conventions, histories, and contexts. Not to mention, inevitably, some authors and works have more to get out of in the first place than others.
July 12th, 2010 @ 7:05 pm
I think maybe rather than a book about literary criticism you are looking for a book about critical reading. I get the feeling from your question that you are looking for a guide to being a more deliberate and careful reader rather than a guide to postmodernism, postcolonialism, structuralism or other isms.
A really good book to read if you want to learn to be a better, more deliberate and careful reader of literature is Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer. Although Prose intends the book for people who are interested in becoming better writers, it is invaluable to those who just wish to become better readers as well and being that Prose is herself both a writer and a seasoned lecturer in literature she has lots to say on the topic. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s just an enjoyable read on its own.http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Like-Write…
Thomas C. Foster has also written a couple of books along the same lines, How to Read Literature Like a Professor and How to Read Novels Like a Professor which are also good, though I prefer the Prose.http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Literatur…http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Novels-Li…
There is also a great little series of small books on different literary topics put out by Graywolf Press that I can’t recommend highly enough. My favourites are Charles Baxter’s The Art of Subtext and The Art of Time in Fiction by Joan Silber but the entire series is definitely worth a read.http://www.amazon.com/Art-Subtext-Beyond…http://www.amazon.com/Art-Time-Fiction-T…http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?u…
Another book that I would recommend is How to Talk About Book You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard. While ostensibly talking about the virtues of being a non-reader Bayard manages to, hilariously at times, make the reader realize the virtues of literature and even learn something about how it achieves it’s effects. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea but I thought it was a fun read and it introduced me to a few books I hadn’t met before.http://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-H…
Cheers.