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New Summer 2014
Mihaela Culea and Andreia-Irina
Suciu
INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY INTERPRETATION.
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
NARRATIVE STRATEGIES, DISCOURSE
PRESENTATION AND TROPES
2014. 296 pages. € 24,80
ISBN 978-3-86628-507-1
FOREWORD
This book defines and critically examines a number of terms that are
useful for the interpretation of literary texts. Fully aware that on the market
there are many other books that cover this broad topic, the book certainly has
many strong points that make it different from the dictionaries of literary
terms it also quotes in the reference section (see, for example, Abrams 1999, Baldick 2001, Childs & Fowler 2006, or Quinn 2006). In
fact, it is by no means a dictionary of literary terms, especially due to the
large space devoted to commentaries of literary terms and the illustrations
from literary texts provided for each individual entry.
However, the book does not claim to offer a comprehensive analytical
framework for a rich collection of literary terms. Instead, its specific aims are:
1. To offer theoretical and
practical guidelines for the basic interpretation of literary texts.
2. To show that literary analysis
can be assisted by a series of analytical instruments that make it more
accessible and easier to conduct. This way, the book will raise students’
awareness of the potentialities of literature for critical thinking and will
improve their analytical skills. Students will, therefore, feel more
comfortable with literary investigation and will be able to perform simple or
complex analyses, and they will develop capacities for systematization or will
perform comparative evaluation of some principles and basic methods for the
analysis of specific literary texts.
3. Ultimately, is seeks to make
the reading of literary texts more analytical, methodical and enjoyable.
The book is structured in four
sections, as follows:
Chapter 1, Narrative Strategies, provides an overview of the major narrative
strategies that can be found in literary texts, such as narration, description,
dialogue, monologue or evocation. These strategies represent different
techniques or modes of organizing discourse in which writers tell their
stories.
Chapter 2, Discourse Presentation, discusses the strategies employed by
narrators in order to present other people’s speech and thought (Norgaard et al. 2010: 81), including the most common categories of speech and
thought presentation (from direct speech or indirect thought to internal
narration).
Chapter 3, Tropes or Figures of Speech, presents a selection of ten essential
tropes that are highly recurrent in literary texts, namely, epithet, hyperbole,
personification, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, simile, litotes, alliteration
and assonance, and irony.
Chapter 4, From Theory to Practice, represents a study section which consists
of a selection of literary excerpts from novels, short stories, poems, or plays
accompanied by a number of questions that invite readers to apply their
theoretical knowledge to the interpretation of literary texts.
The list of bibliographical references placed
at the end of the volume contains the critical books (over 80) and the literary
works (around 100) which are quoted in the book.
Both a thoroughly documented study and a study guide or sourcebook, this
volume seeks to make literature and literary analysis more enjoyable,
systematic and efficient. To this end, the structure of each entry takes the
form of an essay with the following components: first, the authors have
selected the most relevant definitions and characteristic features of the term,
and then follow critical discussions concerning the literary application of
that term. This way, the readers can find and study commented examples of the
ways in which the term under discussion works in various literary texts
belonging to various periods from English and American literature.
The selection of literary concepts
explored has a double justification. On the one hand, our teaching experience
has shown that undergraduate students often have difficulties in handling these
concepts. On the other hand, they are indispensable tools for performing basic,
introductory interpretations of literary texts. The appropriate understanding
of these simpler and more accessible steps for a first reading of the texts
makes further investigation of broader literary concepts (discussed in the
second volume, Introd) less difficult and more
reasonable. For example, it is only by first understanding how metaphor works
that a more complex analysis of allegory becomes possible. Likewise, satire makes use of exaggeration or caricature,
distortion or displacement, so it can be built on a wide range of
stylistic devices, including hyperbole or litotes.
Consequently, the key-features
or strong points of the book lie in the following aspects:
1.
The schematic organisation and discussion of each
literary term with strong emphasis on its definitions, features and its
literary applications.
2.
The wide range of texts used as a literary support,
from the earliest works in the English language (such as Beowulf) to works by contemporary writers (such as Martin Amis or
Ian McEwan).
3.
Perhaps the most important element of originality
rests on the combination of theory and practice, which results from the careful
organisation and structuring of the book in order to build readers’ analytical
competences. First of all, the theoretical discussion included in the first
three chapters is complemented by models for further analyses, so they serve as
practical examples. Secondly, the study section from the last chapter contains
literary texts and topics suggested for a detailed analysis of those texts. The
readers are thus encouraged to use the theoretical background and the
illustrations previously introduced and are guided on how to carry out
step-by-step interpretations of literary texts.
The targeted readership
includes advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of English and American
literatures, scholars working in this field who might want to use the book as a
study textbook for their literary analysis classes, as well as all those
interested in literature and literary criticism.
The authors,
June
2014
Abstract:
Appropriate for introductory analysis of literary
texts, the volume is conceived both as a critical work and a workbook for
literary classes. Structured in four sections, the book combines theory with
practice by providing a thorough analytical framework for a rich collection of
literary terms. The first three chapters investigate narrative strategies
(narration, description, dialogue, monologue or evocation), speech and thought
presentation categories (from direct speech or indirect thought to internal
narration) as well as selection of tropes (personification, metaphor, metonymy,
simile, irony etc.) by offering a theoretical background and explanatory
comments for a wide range of texts. The last section is particularly useful for
in-depth interpretation of a variety of texts proposed for further study with
specific tasks assigned in order to actively engage readers in the process of creative
literary exploration.
Dr. Andreia SUCIU is a lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages
and Literatures, Faculty of Letters, “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacău.
In 2008 she obtained her PhD at “Al.I. Cuza” University
of Iași, Romania, for her
thesis in English Literature (Malcolm Bradbury between Critic and Novelist).
She has published a monograph on this author as well a translation in Romanian
after one of his novels. Her teaching and research fields include contemporary
British drama and fiction (especially theatrical communication, dystopias and
the campus novel), varieties of the English language.
Dr. Mihaela CULEA is a lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages
and Literatures, Faculty of Letters, “VasileAlecsandri”
University of Bacău. In 2008 she obtained her
PhD at “Al.I. Cuza” University of Iași, Romania, for her
thesis in English Literature (Types and Spaces in Eighteenth-Century English
Narratives). Her teaching and research interests include English
literature and literature-related subjects, as well as British cultural
history, cultural studies, or stylistics of text and discourse.
Look as well to
Mihaela Culea
Linguistic Representations and
Contested Identities in the Media
The Special Case of South-Eastern Europeans
as ‘Others’ in the British Press
2016. 238 pages. € 24,80
ISBN 978-3-86628-569-9
Andreia-Irina Suciu and Mihaela
Culea
LITERARY
READINGS: KEY TERMS FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
2014. 318
pages. € 24,80
ISBN 978-3-86628-506-4
Bookorders in your bookstore or
at www.amazon.de or directly
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