Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: the prehistory and rise of "theory" -- Introduction continued: theory and functionalization -- Ways in and out of the hermeneutic circle -- Configurative reading -- The idea of the autonomous artwork -- The new criticism and other western formalisms -- Russian formalism -- Semiotics and structuralism -- Linguistics and literature -- Deconstruction I: Jacques Derrida -- Deconstruction II: Paul de Man -- Freud and fiction -- Jacques Lacan in theory -- Influence -- The postmodern psyche -- The social permeability of reader and text -- The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory -- The political unconscious -- The new historicism -- The classical feminist tradition -- African American criticism -- Postcolonial criticism -- Queer theory and gender performativity -- The institutional construction of literary study -- The end of theory? Neo-pragmatism -- Conclusion: who doesn't hate theory now? -- Appendix: passages referenced in lectures -- The varieties of interpretation: a guide to further reading in literary theory, by Stefan Esposito.

"Bringing his perennially popular course to the page, Yale University Professor Paul H. Fry offers in this welcome book a guided tour of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. At the core of the book's discussion is a series of underlying questions: What is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose? Fry engages with the major themes and strands in twentieth-century literary theory, among them hermeneutics, modes of formalism, semiotics and Structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalytic approaches, Marxist and historicist approaches, theories of social identity, Neo-pragmatism and theory. By incorporating philosophical and social perspectives to connect these many trends, the author offers readers a coherent overall context for a deeper and richer reading of literature"-- Provided by publisher.