literary theory recommendations

[retardedidiot]

allright I'm a high school student living in a third world country and it is almost impossible to find any books in english regarding literary theory, criticism etc. so I buy them online and I don't have any teacher, friends interested in literature so if you could name me a few major works I'd be more than happy. note that I'm interested in it for mere pleasure and I have a lot of leisure time so no limits.

some books I read that made a tremendous help were:

bakhtin - dialogic imagination, speech genres, rabelais and his world
auerbach - mimesis
frye - anatomy of criticism
skhlovsky - theory of prose

also I'm interested in linguistic styles, especially prose. I just finished reading 'the artistry of Shakespeare's prose' by brian vickers which helped me to appreciate and understand aesthetics of prose in general. after reading it I tried to analyze myself what made Borges' prose so beautiful but failed miserably... so I would be very happy to read about prose or rhetoric analyses that will help me understand their structures.

[JBI]

Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp.

[Syd A]

I asked a similar question and received plenty of good recommendations:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56276

[Alexander III]

skhlovsky - theory of prose

This sounds interesting, I have read several things on the aesthetics of verse but nothing on prose, is it a good book and is it relatively accessible and well written?

I ask this because as much as I admire Harold Bloom's works the man just cannot write, Considering his huge knowledge and reading I am surprised he did not run into George Orwell's essay on writing. While the essay on writing is not necessary for creative prose such as novels, the advice is wonderful and very true for essay writing.

[retardedidiot]

Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp.

Thanks, I just ordered it.


I asked a similar question and received plenty of good recommendations:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=56276

I read a few of these. The Uses of Literature (Italo Calvino), Aspects of the Novel (E.M. Forster), The Naive and the Sentimentalist Novelist (Orhan Pamuk), Selected Non-Fictions (J.L. Borges). But to be honest these were very empiric understanding of literature and I felt that they hardly reached any conclusions. Reading about literature through non-fictionists seem to be much more rewarding for me. Though indeed it can be different for someone who is interested in becoming a writer himself... I don't have such interest.


skhlovsky - theory of prose

This sounds interesting, I have read several things on the aesthetics of verse but nothing on prose, is it a good book and is it relatively accessible and well written?

I ask this because as much as I admire Harold Bloom's works the man just cannot write, Considering his huge knowledge and reading I am surprised he did not run into George Orwell's essay on writing. While the essay on writing is not necessary for creative prose such as novels, the advice is wonderful and very true for essay writing.

Yes it is very well written (or well translated) and quite accessible. Sentence lengths are short, no weird jargon and lots of quotations to support analyses.

[Jack of Hearts]

Good luck, retardedidiot.




J

[libernaut]

Gotham Writer's Workshop for Fiction, i don't know if it's what you are looking for but it could help if you are thinking of being a writer.

[WyattGwyon]

Dear . . . . Well I just can't make myself utter your screen name,

Nevertheless, for anyone reading Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoyevsky's Poetics is the text I consider absolutely essential. It was where Bakthin first developed a number of central concepts and did so most clearly. Some of the later work in The Dialogic Imagination almost assumes you have read and digested this as a prerequisite. I think it greatly clarifies his later thinking. Of course, to make good sense of it requires a knowledge of Dostoyevsky too . . .

[aliengirl]

Check out The Art of Fiction by David Lodge. You may find it useful.

[ralfyman]

The works you mentioned are advanced and usually read by lit majors in university. One can find many excerpts, full-length essays, and recommended readings in anthologies, like those from Richter and Leitch.