[Literary Theory] I need someone to guide me

[APrufrock]

Hello, everyone. Well, this is my first post here and I would like to ask you for a favour. You see, I am extremely fond of Literature and Literary theory. I have read a lot of books on it. However, I haven't covered much. So, I would be really grateful if you could all tell me names of the books I should read, like to cover the basis and such.

My idea is to start from any book like, 'What is Literature?' 'What is literary theory' and then move to any books or papers on rhythm, meter and stuff. Should that do? I'd appreciate any advise.

[krishna_lit]

I too am a new user.. and abt ur post abt how to study literature, i don't think there would be any books that tell us how to read literature,, so usually in these kind of pursuing situations I tend to use an internet portal WikiHow.. So, I already searched abt literature stuff for you, and here are the links that might be of some help to you.

Studying Literature: http://www.wikihow.com/Category:Studying-Literature

How to Study English Literature: http://www.wikihow.com/Study-English-Literature

PLz checkout them...

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Hello, everyone. Well, this is my first post here and I would like to ask you for a favour. You see, I am extremely fond of Literature and Literary theory. I have read a lot of books on it. However, I haven't covered much. So, I would be really grateful if you could all tell me names of the books I should read, like to cover the basis and such.

My idea is to start from any book like, 'What is Literature?' 'What is literary theory' and then move to any books or papers on rhythm, meter and stuff. Should that do? I'd appreciate any advise.

If you want to dive right in, this book can keep you occupied for years:

http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Theory-Criticism-Second/dp/0393932923

[kelby_lake]

I'd get a good literary dictionary to give you the basics.

[kiki1982]

What Mutatis and Kelby said.

Otherwise, if you are doing a writer or a novel, look up de Wikipedia entry and see what comes up. Wikipedia doesn't explain, but it's good as a start, so it'll say things like 'Deconstructivists (have) argued...' then you can click on 'deconstructivism' and go from there. Then you can look for articles on this novel about that topic. Works for me. If I have time.

What's with the abbreviations, all of a sudden? Do I have to draw any conclusions fbased on the Serious Discussions thread? :p

[ralfyman]

You can start with Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction and Raman Selden's Practicing Theory and Reading Literature: An Introduction. For excerpts or essays of representative texts, try Richter's Critical Tradition.