Works of Literary Criticism

1.
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages 3.87 avg rating β€” 3,559 ratings
2.
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections 4.29 avg rating β€” 12,265 ratings
3.
Aspects of the Novel
Aspects of the Novel 3.80 avg rating β€” 4,857 ratings
4.
Poetics
Poetics
by: Aristotle
3.83 avg rating β€” 28,472 ratings
5.
Why Read the Classics?
Why Read the Classics? 3.83 avg rating β€” 3,251 ratings
6.
Lectures on Literature
Lectures on Literature 4.33 avg rating β€” 2,602 ratings
7.
On Literature
On Literature 3.95 avg rating β€” 2,292 ratings
8.
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature 4.29 avg rating β€” 3,679 ratings
9.
Literary Theory: An Introduction
Literary Theory: An Introduction 3.94 avg rating β€” 5,590 ratings
10.
Orientalism
Orientalism 4.13 avg rating β€” 28,509 ratings
11.
The Art of Fiction
The Art of Fiction 3.92 avg rating β€” 2,983 ratings
12.
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading 3.98 avg rating β€” 27,058 ratings
13.
Against Interpretation and Other Essays
Against Interpretation and Other Essays 4.14 avg rating β€” 9,995 ratings
14.
How to Read and Why
How to Read and Why 3.61 avg rating β€” 3,792 ratings
15.
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines 3.59 avg rating β€” 33,010 ratings
16.
How Fiction Works
How Fiction Works 3.99 avg rating β€” 7,949 ratings
17.
Anatomy of Criticism
Anatomy of Criticism 4.09 avg rating β€” 1,941 ratings
17.
A History of Reading
A History of Reading 3.99 avg rating β€” 5,411 ratings
19.
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry 3.77 avg rating β€” 1,718 ratings
20.
The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts
The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts 3.98 avg rating β€” 2,858 ratings
21.
The Outsider
The Outsider 4.03 avg rating β€” 4,477 ratings
22.
Seven Types of Ambiguity
Seven Types of Ambiguity 3.82 avg rating β€” 591 ratings
23.
S/Z: An Essay
S/Z: An Essay really liked it 4.00 avg rating β€” 3,869 ratings
24.
The Pleasure of the Text
The Pleasure of the Text really liked it 4.00 avg rating β€” 5,749 ratings
25.
Image - Music - Text
Image - Music - Text 4.09 avg rating β€” 3,789 ratings
26.
Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s
Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s 3.96 avg rating β€” 445 ratings
27.
Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre
Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre 4.09 avg rating β€” 5,785 ratings
28.
David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide
David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide 3.82 avg rating β€” 1,257 ratings
29.
Of Grammatology
Of Grammatology 3.97 avg rating β€” 5,289 ratings
30.
Under the Sign of Saturn: Essays
Under the Sign of Saturn: Essays 4.03 avg rating β€” 1,286 ratings
31.
Culture and Imperialism
Culture and Imperialism 4.18 avg rating β€” 5,662 ratings
32.
The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind 4.27 avg rating β€” 4,725 ratings
33.
The Rhetoric of Fiction
The Rhetoric of Fiction 4.01 avg rating β€” 1,258 ratings
34.
Empire of Signs
Empire of Signs 3.84 avg rating β€” 2,547 ratings
35.
Classics for Pleasure
Classics for Pleasure 3.88 avg rating β€” 564 ratings
36.
Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts
Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts 4.07 avg rating β€” 2,267 ratings
36.
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age 3.76 avg rating β€” 1,931 ratings
38.
Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life
Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life 3.80 avg rating β€” 987 ratings
39.
Axel's Castle: A Study of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930
Axel's Castle: A Study of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930 4.09 avg rating β€” 455 ratings
40.
The Uses of Literature
The Uses of Literature 4.07 avg rating β€” 1,107 ratings
41.
Encounter
Encounter 3.72 avg rating β€” 1,844 ratings
42.
The War Against ClichΓ©: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000
The War Against ClichΓ©: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 4.09 avg rating β€” 1,651 ratings
43.
Where the Stress Falls: Essays
Where the Stress Falls: Essays 3.88 avg rating β€” 573 ratings
43.
The Theory of the Novel
The Theory of the Novel 3.84 avg rating β€” 1,434 ratings
45.
Marxism and Literary Criticism
Marxism and Literary Criticism 3.89 avg rating β€” 1,088 ratings
46.
The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts
The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts 4.09 avg rating β€” 285 ratings
46.
Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
Six Walks in the Fictional Woods 4.15 avg rating β€” 3,261 ratings
48.
At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches
At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches 3.97 avg rating β€” 949 ratings
48.
Am I a Snob?: Modernism and the Novel
Am I a Snob?: Modernism and the Novel 4.13 avg rating β€” 15 ratings
48.
The Great Code: The Bible and Literature
The Great Code: The Bible and Literature 4.07 avg rating β€” 636 ratings
51.
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human 4.03 avg rating β€” 3,666 ratings
52.
Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature
Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature 3.85 avg rating β€” 928 ratings
53.
Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in the Old Criticism
Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in the Old Criticism 4.26 avg rating β€” 450 ratings
54.
An Experiment in Criticism
An Experiment in Criticism 4.21 avg rating β€” 3,222 ratings
55.
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson 3.99 avg rating β€” 3,554 ratings
56.
Heretics
Heretics 4.17 avg rating β€” 5,551 ratings
57.
The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature
The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature 4.08 avg rating β€” 212 ratings
58.
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction 3.65 avg rating β€” 4,497 ratings
59.
The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology
The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology 3.95 avg rating β€” 6,103 ratings
60.
J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century 3.88 avg rating β€” 5,653 ratings
61.
Literature and Evil
Literature and Evil 3.96 avg rating β€” 1,493 ratings
62.
No Other Book: Selected Essays
No Other Book: Selected Essays 4.19 avg rating β€” 77 ratings
63.
The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays
The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays 4.41 avg rating β€” 462 ratings
64.
Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (Collected Works of Northrop Frye)
Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (Collected Works of Northrop Frye) 4.34 avg rating β€” 766 ratings
65.
The Art of the Novel
The Art of the Novel 3.98 avg rating β€” 7,049 ratings
65.
Marxism and Literature
Marxism and Literature 4.07 avg rating β€” 1,664 ratings
67.
The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature
The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature 4.13 avg rating β€” 187 ratings
68.
The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus
The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus
by: Palinurus
3.93 avg rating β€” 491 ratings
69.
The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding
The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding
by: Ian Watt
3.84 avg rating β€” 940 ratings
70.
...And I Worked at the Writer's Trade: Chapters of Literary History 1918-1978
...And I Worked at the Writer's Trade: Chapters of Literary History 1918-1978 3.85 avg rating β€” 20 ratings
71.
The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art, and Representation
The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art, and Representation 3.95 avg rating β€” 236 ratings
71.
Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories
Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories 4.14 avg rating β€” 1,580 ratings
71.
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them 3.77 avg rating β€” 11,631 ratings
74.
The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life
The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life 3.32 avg rating β€” 6,187 ratings
75.
How to Read a Poem
How to Read a Poem 3.75 avg rating β€” 691 ratings
76.
The Identity of Yeats
The Identity of Yeats 3.89 avg rating β€” 19 ratings
76.
Morphology of the Folktale
Morphology of the Folktale 4.01 avg rating β€” 2,128 ratings
76.
The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600
The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600 4.16 avg rating β€” 147 ratings
79.
How to Read Literature
How to Read Literature 3.69 avg rating β€” 2,556 ratings
79.
The Historical Novel
The Historical Novel 3.91 avg rating β€” 224 ratings
79.
A Preface to Paradise Lost
A Preface to Paradise Lost 4.26 avg rating β€” 1,646 ratings
79.
Six Memos for the Next Millennium
Six Memos for the Next Millennium 4.18 avg rating β€” 10,405 ratings
83.
Literary Taste
Literary Taste 3.36 avg rating β€” 520 ratings
84.
Antaeus #59: Literature as Pleasure
Antaeus #59: Literature as Pleasure 3.33 avg rating β€” 6 ratings
85.
Howards End: E.M. Forster's House of Fiction (Twayne's Masterwork Studies No. 93)
Howards End: E.M. Forster's House of Fiction (Twayne's Masterwork Studies No. 93) 3.80 avg rating β€” 5 ratings
85.
The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel
The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel 4.04 avg rating β€” 54 ratings
87.
A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose
A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose 3.90 avg rating β€” 596 ratings
88.
The English Novel: An Introduction
The English Novel: An Introduction 3.85 avg rating β€” 148 ratings
88.
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands 3.69 avg rating β€” 4,269 ratings
90.
The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction
The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction 4.16 avg rating β€” 135 ratings
91.
Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History
Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History 3.68 avg rating β€” 687 ratings
92.
The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination
The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination 4.34 avg rating β€” 2,738 ratings
92.
Microworlds: Writings on Science Fiction and Fantasy
Microworlds: Writings on Science Fiction and Fantasy 3.94 avg rating β€” 282 ratings
92.
The Novel: An Alternative History, 1600-1800
The Novel: An Alternative History, 1600-1800 4.13 avg rating β€” 45 ratings
95.
The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick
The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick 4.10 avg rating β€” 1,030 ratings
95.
How to Live Forever: Science Fiction and Philosophy
How to Live Forever: Science Fiction and Philosophy 3.60 avg rating β€” 10 ratings
97.
The Art of Literature and the Art of Controversy
The Art of Literature and the Art of Controversy 4.02 avg rating β€” 200 ratings
98.
Jewel Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction
Jewel Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction 4.23 avg rating β€” 260 ratings
99.
Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader
Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader 3.84 avg rating β€” 51 ratings
100.
Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World
Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World 4.02 avg rating β€” 1,133 ratings
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