This primer in applied critical theory bridges the gap between early modern English poetry and various analytical approaches to literature. It is more focused than other introductory guides to criticism, such as Wilfred Guerin's Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature (1966; 2nd., 1979) and Charles Bressler's Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. Evans (English and philosophy, ... Read moreAuburn Univ., Montgomery) offers paragraph-length summaries of 20 critical methodologies and demonstrates, in chapter-length discussions, how they elucidate some 30 Renaissance poems by writers from Wyatt to Milton (included are several poems by Emilia Lanier, Anne Vaughn Lock, and Lady Mary Wroth). Evans's style is direct and accessible but never simplistic. Not every method is applied to every text (one misses a psychoanalytic reading of Donne's `Flea' and `Holy Sonnet 14'), but Evans succeeds in showing how early modern texts might respond to a variety of reading approaches. Specialists may find the book's design somewhat schematic, but the intended audience (less experienced readers) will welcome Evans's concise yet careful distinctions among a variety of potentially challenging, theoretical strategies. Supplementary materials by Anne Kemp and Christina Garner offer useful additional examples of explication and a taxonomy of critical methods. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; general readers.
C. Baker, Armstrong State University, USA
CHOICE
Perspectives on Renaissance Poetry aims to demystify literary theory for undergraduates and largely succeeds at doing so ... Evans explains complex concepts in admirably clear and simple language, making this an excellent text for a theory course aimed at advanced undergraduates. His focus is on teaching students to recognize the questions, concerns, and habits of thought underlying each critical approach, rather than the jargon. The appendix, with its detailed lists of questions that different critics might ask of a text, is particularly helpful at guiding students to apply these ideas ... This book effectively illustrates, in clear and simple language, how and why readers can arrive at such different interpretations of the same text, even within a single critical framework ... Students should come away from Evans's book with an enhanced sense of how and why familiarity with theory can make their readings of primary texts richer.
Sixteenth Century Journal
A useful reference work ... Texts of poems are followed by discussion using different critical approaches, offering paragraph-length accounts of twenty critical methodologies and showing, through application of one or several of them to individual poems, the ways in which they enrich thirty Renaissance poems. Mainly aimed at undergraduates, there is much to be gained from Evans's sensible discussions.
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