Contexts For Criticism

In this introduction to literary criticism, the major critical theories of literary interpretation—historical, formal, reader-response, mimetic, intertextual, poststructural, and new historical—are presented in separate chapters that include detailed introductions, “theoretical” essays that explain and argue the value of each theory, and “applications” essays in which the theories are applied to the same three literary works: William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” Wordsworth’s and Chopin’s works are included in the book.