COURSE OUTLINE

Literary Theory



Course Objectives and Prospective Learning Outcomes
This intensive core course is an important and foundational requirement for any onward literary study and research. The course introduces a historical and multidisciplinary development of literary and critical approaches that later develop into theory. After going through the prescribed course contents, the students are expected to foster both knowledge and a keen insight of the contemporary trends that have characterized the theoretical and critical study of Literature so far.
Course Contents

• Psychoanalytic Criticism
•
• Postmodernism

• Postcolonialism

• Russian Formalism

• Marxist Criticism

• Cultural Materialism and New Historicism

Note: The instructor tends to cover all the above-mentioned contents in terms of the varying dimensions that evolved (and are still evolving) over the years. Nevertheless, the course contents can be amended in case of shortage of time.

Suggested Readings

• Eagleton, Terry, Literary Theory: an Introduction, 2nd ed., Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
• Barry, Peter, Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, University of Aberystwyth Press, 2002.
• Newton, K.M, ed. Twentieth Century Literary Theory: A Reader, New York, St. Martin’s ,1998.
• Seldon, Raman & Widdowson, Peter, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, Kentucky, University Press of Kentucky, 1993.
• Hans Bertens, Literary Theory: the Basics, 2nd ed., Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge, 2008.
• Belsey, Catherine, Critical Practice, London, Routeldge, 1980.
• Vincent B. Leitch (General Editor), The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, New York and London, W.W Norton and Company, 2001 (or later editions).