Critical Theory Handbooks

The Handbook to Romanticism Studies is an accessible and indispensible resource providing students and scholars with a rich array of historical and up-to-date critical and theoretical contexts for the study of Romanticism. • Focuses on British Romanticism while also addressing continental and transatlantic Romanticism and earlier periods • Utilizes keywords such as imagination, sublime, poetics, philosophy, race, historiography, and visual culture as points of access to the study of Romanticism and the theoretical concerns and the culture of the period • Explores topics central to Romanticism studies and the critical trends of the last thirty years

Featuring the latest research findings and exploring the fascinating interplay of modernist authors and intellectual luminaries, from Beckett and Kafka to Derrida and Adorno, this bold new collection of essays gives students a deeper grasp of key texts in modernist literature. • Provides a wealth of fresh perspectives on canonical modernist texts, featuring the latest research data • Adopts an original and creative thematic approach to the subject, with concepts such as race, law, gender, class, time, and ideology forming the structure of the collection • Explores current and ongoing debates on the links between the aesthetics and praxis of authors and modernist theoreticians • Reveals the profound ways in which modernist authors have influenced key thinkers, and vice versa.

A Handbook of Middle English Studies "This sharp-minded, coherent set of essays both maps and liberates: not only does it map the intellectual territory of contemporary cultural debate; it also liberates the extraordinary texts of later medieval England to move across that contemporary cultural terrain." James Simpson, Harvard University "Marion Turner has skilfully choreographed an exciting ensemble of fresh accounts of the English Middle Ages. We see the period in a new light that shows with compassion and imagination, as well as thoughtful scholarship, how the literature of the past speaks to contemporary preoccupations." Ardis Butterfield, Yale University "Strikingly original: theory-literate and materially-grounded ways of reading Middle English texts." David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania A Handbook of Middle English Studies presents twenty-six original and accessible essays by leading scholars, analyzing the relationship between critical theory and late-medieval literature. The collection offers a range of entry points into the rich field of medieval literary studies, exploring subjects including the depiction of the self and the mind, the literature of conquest, ideas of beauty and aesthetics, and the relationship between place and literature. Topics that have long been central to the field, such as authorship, gender, and race, feature alongside areas only recently coming under critical scrutiny, such as globalization, the environment, and animality. Collectively, the essays demonstrate that the manuscript culture of late medieval literature raises key theoretical issues concerning the relationship between authors, texts, and readers. A Handbook of Middle English Studies models diverse approaches to medieval texts and stakes a claim in debates about topics ranging from class to the canon, from imagination to nationhood, from sexuality to the public sphere.

Provides a detailed map of contemporary critical theory in Renaissance and Early Modern English literary studies beyond Shakespeare A Handbook of English Renaissance Literary Studies is a groundbreaking guide to the contemporary engagement with critical theory within the larger disciplinary area of Renaissance and Early Modern studies. Comprising commissioned contributions from leading international scholars, it provides an overview of literary theory, beyond Shakespeare, focusing on most major figures, as well as some lesser-known writers of the period. This book represents an important first step in bridging the divide between the abundance of titles which explore applications of theory in Shakespeare studies, and the relative lack of such texts concerning English Literary Renaissance studies as a whole, which includes major figures such as Marlowe, Jonson, Donne, and Milton. The tripartite structure offers a map of the critical landscape so that students can appreciate the breadth of the work being done, along with an exploration of the ways in which the treatments of or approaches to key issues have changed over time. Handbook of English Renaissance Literary Studies is must-reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of early modern and Renaissance English literature, as well as their instructors and advisors. Divided into three main sections, "Conditions of Subjectivity," "Spaces, Places, and Forms," and "Practices and Theories," A Handbook of English Renaissance Literary Studies: • Provides an overview of theoretical work and the theoretical-informed competencies which are central to the teaching of English Renaissance literary studies beyond Shakespeare • Provides a map of the critical landscape of the field to provide students with an opportunity to appreciate the breadth of the work done • Features newly-commissioned essays in representative subject areas to offer a clear picture of the contemporary theoretically-engaged work in the field • Explores the ways in which the treatments of or approaches to key issues have changed over time • Offers examples of the ways in which the practice of a theoretically-engaged criticism may enrich the personal and professional lives of critics, and the culture in which such critical practice takes place

Reflecting the profound impact of critical theory on the study of the humanities, this collection of original essays examines the texts and artifacts of the Anglo-Saxon period through key theoretical terms such as 'ethnicity' and 'gender'. • Explores the interplay between critical theory and Anglo-Saxon studies • Theoretical framework will appeal to specialist scholars as well as those new to the field • Includes an afterword on the value of the dialogue between Anglo-Saxon studies and critical theory