Literary criticism?

[Clay MacDonnell]

I've embarrassingly little to no knowledge of literary criticism and commentary, - despite
that of George Steiner and Harold Bloom - both past and present. But I'd like to fix this; and so I don't suppose anyone could give me a broad list of major contributors upto and including our present moment?

[dark desire]

I am an engineer by education and had a few courses in literature including two in literary criticism in college and most of it went over the top of my head. The fascination with theory and philosophy was tremendous. I started reading theory a year back with one of the books of the 'Beginning series' - Beginning Theory.

After I went through 3-4 chapters, things started looking like a lot of words with comprehension impossible for me. Then I picked up another book from the series 'Beginning Shakespeare'. The same thing happened after a few chapters. Then I ordered 3 books of the series - 'Beginning Postcolonialism', 'Beginning Modernism', 'Beginning Postmodernism'. I have not completed any of the books on these series. I have read only things that interested me. While reading Beginning Postcolonialism, I read two african writers - Ngugi and Chinua Achebe. Then I read Jane Eyre, a classic, from a postcolonial perspective and then rewriting of the novel (not exactly rewriting) by Jean Rhys.

After this I picked up Beginning Modernism. This book was not only about literature. It talks about the entire Modernist movement which is something I have not fathomed to any significant extent. The only thing that happened was I got fascinated by modernism and read a few works. Then Postmodernism and a few works in that era. Ultimately I find myself surrounded by a lot of things that I want to read and I have to read and not able to prioritize where to begin and what order to follow. Currently there are many books half read and I keep craving for more.

One wonderful thing that happened while studying theory was that my mind opened up to a vast variety of literature. Another wonderful thing I realized my opinions used to be trivial and I felt supremely confident about them. There are many on this forum who have strong convictions - some of them have read a vast variety while others have very limited without having explored much.

Thanks to the theoretical study, I feel greatly lost, wonderfully lost. Because of studying theory I see many ways of looking at texts and I can't decide my own preferences. This is a danger I must tell you about before you go deeper into theory. You will not know and you will start sounding like a writer/theorist you have read and lose your original voice (some would say there is no such thing as 'own voice', but this is post-structuralist way of looking. I can't decide whether I agree or disagree). You may lose some or a lot of interest in literature after reading theory. (Read my only blog post to see the despair this caused me.) It is a vast field and I don't know how it will affect you. But I am certain that it will affect you. Go in for theory if you are willing to broaden your interest in literature. The beginning series is a good starting point.

[Desolation]

I'm taking my first Literary Criticism class next week. I'm excited about it...I figure that it will totally change the way I approach books, but that's ok.

Of the little bit of Literary Criticism that I have read so far, I would highly recommend William H. Gass and Steven Moore. They focus primarily on experimental literature (if that's not your thing, then they may not be the right critics, though), and have done a lot of work for the publisher Dalkey Archive Press.

[Charles Darnay]

Northrop frye, anatomy of criticism.

[Anton Hermes]

An Artificial Wilderness: Essays on 20th Century Literature by Sven Birkerts.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Or you could go hardcore and just get this.

I think criticism is interesting to look into, but too much theory can cloud your mind.

[JBI]

It depends, theory and criticism are different fields. Theory is mostly nonsense, criticism is mostly only interested to those concerned with specific texts.

As for a single book, Northrop Frye's The Great Code would be a good start, or anything really by Frye.

Still, most criticism is direct for certain periods, authors, or genres, and not so much concerned with general theorizing. You should ask specifically toward which books you like.

[Clay MacDonnell]

It depends, theory and criticism are different fields. Theory is mostly nonsense, criticism is mostly only interested to those concerned with specific texts.

As for a single book, Northrop Frye's The Great Code would be a good start, or anything really by Frye.

Still, most criticism is direct for certain periods, authors, or genres, and not so much concerned with general theorizing. You should ask specifically toward which books you like.

Thanks. I'll have to give Frye a read. As for my interests, they're many and they differ. I suppose I'll go with 16th century English literature (particularly Shakespeare's plays and Miton's 'Paradise Lost'), 19th century literature (particularly Goethe's 'The sorrows of young Werther', and 'Faust', the English romantic poets, and Charles Dickens' novels), and - possiby difficult for you - 20th century Australian literature (Patrick White, Tim winton, and Judith Wright).

[bluosean]

Well, I don't know much of literary criticism myself, but two of the only writers I know well are William Hazlitt and Edmund Wilson. Hazlitt for Shakespeare and Wilson for Dickens (The Wound and the Bow). Both these guys I really enjoy reading.