ENGLISH: Background Information

The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism has become the indispensable resource for scholars and students of literary theory and discourse. The long-awaited second edition includes 48 new entries and subentries and has been revised throughout, taking account of ten years of rapidly changing scholarship. While concentrating on the explosion of contemporary critical and theoretical works, the Guide presents a comprehensive historical survey of ideas and individuals ranging from Plato and Aristotle to twentieth-century scholars. It includes more than 240 alphabetically arranged entries on critics and theorists, critical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods.

"More than 150 alphabetically arranged entries provide rich and fascinating historical details on the form and function of everyday and obscure objects that are mentioned in Austen's novels. Numerous illustrations accompany the lively and often humorous essays that bring these works of fiction to life. Students and devotees of Jane Austen will become familiar with what her characters ate, wore, and did for recreation. Well-researched information is presented about domestic items, the social scene, the workplace, the church, special events and rituals, and everyday customs that constituted life in Jane Austen's England." ~From the publisher

"Encyclopedia of African-American Literature covers the entire spectrum of the African-American literary tradition, from the 18th-century writings of pioneers such as Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley, to 20th-century canonic texts, to the finest of today's best-selling authors and rap artists. This volume includes more than 500 engaging entries on major and minor writers..."

"From Jacques Derrida's diffrance to Henry James's ficelle, the vocabulary of literary theory and criticism can seem difficult if not opaque. To help remedy the average reader's bafflement, this new Third Edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms provides succinct and often witty explanations of almost twelve hundred terms, covering everything from the ancient dithyramb to the contemporary dub poetry, from the popular bodice-ripper to the aristocratic masque, and from the social realism of Stalin's era to the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez." ~From the publisher

"Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is one of the world's best-loved reference books. First published in 1870, this treasury of 'words that have a story to tell' has established itself as one of the great reference classics-the first port of call for tens of thousands of terms, phrases and proper names, and a fund of fascinating, unusual and out-of-the-way information. At the heart of the dictionary lie entries on the meaning and origin of a vast range of words and expressions, from everyday English phrases to Latin tags..." ~From the publisher

"After its heyday in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, naturalism, a genre that typically depicts human beings as the product of biological and environmental forces over which they have little control, was supplanted by modernism, a genre in which writers experimented with innovations in form and content. In the last decade, the movement is again attracting spirited scholarly debate. The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Naturalism takes stock of the best new research in the field through collecting twenty-eight original essays drawing upon recent scholarship in literary and cultural studies." ~From the publisher

"How do we approach the rich field of nineteenth-century American literature? How might we recalibrate the coordinates of critical vision and open up new areas of investigation? To answer such questions, this volume brings together 23 original essays written by leading scholars in American literary studies." ~From the publisher