Raman Selden - Practising Theory and Reading Literature: An Introduction

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to quote material in copyright:

Adcock, Fleur, 'The Ex-Queen among the Astronomers' from Selected Poems (1983). Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.

Heller, Joseph, an extract from Catch 22 (1955). Reprinted by permission of Joseph Heller and Jonathan Cape and Candida Donadio & Associates, copyright 1955, 1961 by Joseph Heller.

Lawrence, D. H,, an extract from 'The White Stocking', The Collected Short Stories, vol. I. Copyright 1933 by the Estate of D. H. Lawrence. Copyright renewed 1961 by Angelo Ravagii and C. M. Weekley, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagii. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, Inc.

Lessing, Doris, an extract from Memoirs of a Survivor (1974). Copyright 1974 by The Octagon Press; reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Mailer, Norman, an extract from An American Dream (1965). Reprinted by permission of Andr Deutsch Ltd and The Scott Meredith Literary Agency.

Orton, Joe, an extract from Loot (1967). Used by permission of Methuen London and Grove Press, a division of Wheatland Corporation.

Pinter, Harold, an extract from The Homecoming (1965). Used by permission of Methuen London and Grove Press, a division of Wheatland Corporation.

Raine, Craig, 'A Martian Sends a Postcard Home' from A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979). Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.

Rich, Adrienne, 'Planetarium'. All efforts have been made to trace the copyright holder. Grateful acknowledgement is made.

Smart, Christopher, an extract from Jubilate Agno in The Poetical Works of Christopher Smart (1980), vol. I (edited by Karina Williamson). Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.

Stevens, Wallace, 'A High-Toned Old Christian Woman', from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. Copyright 1923 and renewed 1951 by Wallace Stevens. Reprinted from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Williams, Tennessee, an extract from The Glass Menagerie. Copyright 1945 by Tennessee Williams and Edwina D. Williams and renewed 1973 by permission of Random House, Inc.

In David Lodge's Small World (1984) Philip Swallow, an old-fashioned academic, gives a paper at an international conference which neatly sums up what might be called the 'Old Criticism':

Philip Swallow was the first to speak. He said the function of criticism was to assist in the function of literature itself, which Dr Johnson had famously defined as enabling us better to enjoy life, or better to endure it. The great writers were men and women of exceptional wisdom, insight, and understanding. Their novels, plays and poems were inexhaustible reservoirs of values, ideas, images, which, when properly understood and appreciated, allowed us to live more fully, more finely, more intensely. But literary conventions changed, history changed, language changed, and these treasures too easily became locked away in libraries, covered with dust, neglected and forgotten. It was the job of the critic to... bring out the treasures into the light of day. Of course, he needed certain specialist skills to do this: a knowledge of history, a knowledge of philology, of generic convention and textual editing. But above all he needed enthusiasm, the love of books. It was by the demonstration of this enthusiasm in action that the critic forged a bridge between the great writers and the general reader. ( Small World, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1985, p. 317)