How to Read Literature - Tapa dura

"This is Eagleton at his most charming and an excellent guide for literature students early in their education or those seeking a refresher course."-Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly "A genial guide to exactly what the title promises... This short book benefits from a conversational, even humorous tone... Includes a very funny exegesis of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' and an interpretive linkage of Dickens and Harry Potter."-Kirkus Reviews Kirkus Reviews "Part of the fun of the book is the way in which Eagleton prompts, provokes and at times infuriates. How to read How to Read Literature?...as an ideal introductory guide to critical analysis, and a thoroughly enjoyable reminder of Eagleton's own skill and subtlety as a reader."-Felicity James, Times Higher Education Supplement -- Felicity James Times Higher Education Supplement "A pleasingly readable overview of what we talk about when we talk about books... Incisive and honest."-Michael Washburn, Boston Globe -- Michael Washburn Boston Globe "How to Read Literature is a lively and engaging primer on basic strategies for appreciating literature, a kind of English 101 in a book."-Washington Post Washington Post

What makes a work of literature good or bad? How freely can the reader interpret it? Could a nursery rhyme like Baa Baa Black Sheep be full of concealed loathing, resentment, and aggression? In this accessible, delightfully entertaining book, Terry Eagleton addresses these intriguing questions and a host of others. How to Read Literature is the book of choice for students new to the study of literature and for all other readers interested in deepening their understanding and enriching their reading experience. In a series of brilliant analyses, Eagleton shows how to read with due attention to tone, rhythm, texture, syntax, allusion, ambiguity, and other formal aspects of literary works. He also examines broader questions of character, plot, narrative, the creative imagination, the meaning of fictionality, and the tension between what works of literature say and what they show. Unfailingly authoritative and cheerfully opinionated, the author provides useful commentaries on classicism, Romanticism, modernism, and postmodernism along with spellbinding insights into a huge range of authors, from Shakespeare and J. K. Rowling to Jane Austen and Samuel Beckett.