The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism presents a staggeringly varied collection of the most influential critical statements from the classical era to the present day. Edited by scholars and teachers whose interests range from the history of poetics to postmodernism, from classical rhetoric to eriture feminine, and from the social construction of gender to the machinery of academic superstardom, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism promises to become the standard anthology in its field. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism offers nearly twice the number of selections in other leading anthologies and more twentieth-century selections than any other text (including anthologies devoted solely to the twentieth century).
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Criticism-It's what you'll wish you could be dreaming about at 3am:
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism offers students a comprehensive introduction to theory and criticism. The student will also be pleased with the biography section before each critic's essay. However, I did find that it did not provide adequate supplemental material that could further assist comprehension.
Typically Norton--Mostly Good:
If one had to choose only one text to study literary theory, that would certainly be THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF THEORY AND CRITICISM. Its more than 2,500 pages cover the complete spectum of western literary theory from Plato to the present day. The editors Leitch, Cain, Finke, Johnson, McGowan, and Williams are both competent and lucid in their choices of authors and their introductions thereto. The Norton anthologies in general are written in the same massive style, which accentuates comprehensiveness at the... more info
Just some technical issues...:
I'm not commenting on the content, just the book itself. The pages are so thin that when you read you can actually see the type on the opposite side of the page through the paper... I don't know about anybody else, but I personally find this incredibly distracting, especially since the font is already very small. I suppose it would have been too hard to make the book a little thicker so that it would actually be readable? If that sort of thing doesn't bother you, this is a great anthology.
Incredulous Omissions:
Norton anthologies are typically criticized for their omissions, rarely for their inclusions. But by their nature, anthology editors must be selective, because not every representation can be accommodated. Frequently, these omissions center on an obscure, parochial, or provincial interest that the editors choose, often rightly, to omit. Here's a case where criticism of both inclusion and omission are justified, if only because over-sampling of one representation must be compensated by elimination of... more info
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