Contexts for Criticism

This revised edition describes the major forms of literary criticism, including historical criticism, formal criticism, reader-response criticism, mimetic criticism and structural criticism. It then applies these to three literary works: Shakespeare's "Hamlet", Chopin's "The Awakening" and Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn". Concise introductions to each chapter describe literary criticisms which are then illustrated by six essays. New to this edition are many new essays, new chapters on post-structural criticism and new historicism, and improved representation of feminist criticism, particularly in four of the seven new essays on "The Awakening".