Notes

Table of contents includes: Introduction -- Phenomenological theory: Ingarden -- Hermeneutical theory: Gadamer -- Gestalt theory: Gombrich -- Reception theory: Iser -- Semiotic theory: Eco -- Psychoanalytical theory: Ehrenzweig -- Marxist theory: Williams -- Deconstruction: Miller -- Anthropological theory: Gans -- Dewey's Art as Experience -- Showalter's 'Towards a Feminist Poetics' -- Theory in perspective -- Postscript - Postcolonial discourse: Said
'Using classic literary texts, including Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian urn', Spenser's 'The shepheardes calendar', and T.S. Eliot's 'The waste land', Iser shows what a work of art looks like if viewed in terms of each of the theories concerned. He presents the different theories objectively, leaving it up to readers to decide which, if any, they subscribe to. In this way, he defuses students' fear of theory and demonstrates the potential of different theories for interpreting texts'--Back cover