Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-187) and index.
Twentieth-century formalism : convergence and divergence -- Russian formalism, Mikhail Bakhtin, heteroglossia, and carnival -- Reader-response theory, the theoretical project, and identity politics -- Stanley Fish, self-consuming artifacts, and the professionalization of literary studies -- Travelling through the valley of ashes : symbolic unity in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The great Gatsby -- Charlotte Brontë and Frye's Secular scripture : the structure of romance in Jane Eyre -- 'Telle us som myrie tale, by youre fey!' : exploring the reading transaction and narrative structure in Chaucer's Clerk's tale and Troilus and Criseyde -- Addressing horizons of readerly expectation in Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness and Ford Madox Ford's The good soldier, or, how to put the 'reader' in 'reader response'.
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Provides an introduction to formalist and reader-response literary theory. Demonstrates each theory through a series of critical essays analyzing classic pieces of literature.