Thomas Schmitz's book provides a clear, lively and intelligent guide through most major areas of modern literary theory and their application to the study of classical literature. It neatly identifies key theoretical texts and thinkers, and provides telling examples which lend colour and life to the impressive range of concepts discussed. He is refreshingly honest about his own prejudices and difficulties, while remaining even-handed and balanced in discussion; his presentation of the problems and objections faced by each theory is especially helpful. This excellent book has something to offer for every serious contemporary student of classical literature.

This book provides students and scholars of classical literature with a practical guide to modern literary theory and criticism. Using a clear and concise approach, it navigates readers through various theoretical approaches, including Russian Formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, gender studies, and New Historicism.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments for the English Translation

Introduction

What Is, and To What End Do We Study, Literary Theory?

Literary Theory and Classics

Objections Raised against Literary Theory

How to Use This Book

Introductions to Literary Theory

1. Russian Formalism 17

The Question of Literariness

Roman Jakobson's Model of Linguistic Communication

Poetic Language as Defamiliarization

Further Reading

2. Structuralism

The Founder of Structuralism: Ferdinand de Saussure

Saussure's Definition of the Linguistic Sign

The Meaning of Differences

Structuralism and Subject

Structural Anthropology

Is Structuralist Interpretation Possible?

Structuralist Definitions of Literary Genres

Further Reading

3. Narratology

Vladimir Propp's Analysis of the Folk Tale

Greimas's Actantial Theory of Narrative

Roland Barthes and the Study of Narrative Texts

Structuralist Plot-Analysis: Gérard Genette

Irene de Jong's Narratological Analysis of the Homeric Epics

Further Reading

4. Mikhail Bakhtin

Bakhtin's Life and the Problem of His Writings

Dialogism and the Novel

The Carnivalization of Literature

Menippean Satire and Ancient Carnivalesque Literature

Further Reading

5. Intertextuality

Leading the Way: Julia Kristeva

Further Developments of Intertextuality

Gérard Genette's Model of Hypertextuality

Intertextuality in Virgil

Further Reading

6. Reader-Response Criticism

Empirical Reception Studies

Aesthetics of Reception

American Reader-Response Criticism

Wheeler's Analysis of Ovid's Metamorphoses

Further Reading

7. Orality - Literacy

Oral Cultures: The Theses of Goody and Watt

What Does "Orality" Mean?

Oral Poetry

The Homeric Epics as a Test Case

Further Reading

8. Deconstruction

The Foundations: Derrida's Criticism of Logocentrism

Deconstruction in America

Objections to Deconstruction

The Role of the Author

Stanley Fish's Model of "Interpretive Communities"

The Responsibility of the Interpreter

Deconstruction's Merits and Demerits

Deconstruction in Antiquity? Socrates und Protagoras

Further Reading

9. Michel Foucault and Discourse Analysis

The Power of Discourse

Objections to Foucault's Analysis of Discourse

Foucault and Antiquity

The Debate about Foucault's Interpretation of Ancient Sexuality

Further Reading

10. New Historicism

New Historicism and Deconstruction

New Historicism and Michel Foucault

Objections to New Historicism

New Historicism and Antiquity

Further Reading

11. Feminist Approaches/Gender Studies

The Feminist Movement and Definitions of "Woman"

Feminism in Literary Criticism

French Feminism

Pragmatic Feminism in Literary Criticism

From Images of Women to Gender Studies

Queer Theory

Gender Studies and Attic Drama

Further Reading

12. Psychoanalytic Approaches

Interpreting Dreams, Interpreting Literature

Three Attempts at Psychoanalytic Interpretation

Language and the Unconscious: Jacques Lacan

Further Reading

Conclusions?

Whither Now?

Additional Notes

References and Bibliography

Index