Designed for students and beginning scholars of English Literature, this course will introduce you to major schools of thought in English literary theory and literary analysis. I have kept the materials to the very basics of literary theory, but if you feel the need I can always enhance the level of complexity of the course.
Designed for students and beginning scholars of English Literature, this course will introduce you to major schools of thought in English literary theory and literary analysis. I have kept the materials to the very basics of literary theory, but if you feel the need I can always enhance the level of complexity of the course.
Please also note that at the bottom of the course syllabus page, I have added additional materials that link to my YouTube channel. These materials are not required for the course but you are likely to expand your knowledge if you spend some time watching these additional video resources.
Besides the video lectures, the course includes textual resources, links to longer and more detailed videos, and links to the resources on my website. I am also open to any suggestions that you might have and would incorporate them as and when I revise this course. So, please feel free to reach out to me through the course messaging system with your questions, queries, and suggestions.
What You Will learn in This Course:
1. All major approaches to English literary theory and analysis.
2. How to read texts critically and how to understand literature from various theoretical perspective.
This video introduces you to the course and informs you about what to expect from the course. Ensuing videos will cover each major school of literary theory and will also provide you with additional resources.
A brief explanation of how to build your knowledge of theory over time, especially after you finish this introductory course.
This brief video explains what roughly is literary theory and gives you an idea of how different theories emerge because of the emphasis on the text, the author, or the reader.
This video introduces you to the basics of New Criticism and to some ideas of its major thinkers.
Using the resources provided for this lecture, this video component introduces you to the general ideas of some of the major New Criticism theorists.
This video lecture introduces students to certain basic ideas, concepts, and practices of the structuralist movement.
This brief video summarizes what we have covered so far in the course.
This video introduces you to the main concepts related to poststructuralist theory.
This brief video introduces you to Reader Response criticism with brief introduction to some major thinkers and their ideas on the subject.
This lecture introduces you to some major Marxian ideas and then explains Marxism further by discussing other Marxist theorists and writers.
A brief introduction to postcolonialism and postcolonial criticism.
This lecture explains Freudian Psychoanalysis and its use for reading literary text.
This brief video answers a few questions about the Matthew Arnold essay "Functions of Criticism."
This is my reading and discussion of T S Eliot's 1919 famous essay on poetry.
This is an edited version of an online class that I conducted for my students in the spring of 2020. I am hopeful that this would be of some sue to you all.
An introduction to Louis Althusser's essay on ideological state apparatuses. The essay is provided in resources.
A brief discussion of a classic structuralist essay. Please read the full essay provided under resources to this video.
This quiz allows you to test your understanding of new criticism.
This lecture is from my YouTUbe Channel and discusses Terry Eagleton's discussion of English Literature and Literary Theory from his famous book: Literary Theory: An Introduction.
This is chapter two of Terry Eagleton's book on Literary Theory (Full PDF of the book is available in resources to this section) and is also available on my YouTube channel.
This is a discussion of chapter 2 of Terry eagleton's book. The full pDF of the book is provided under resources, please do read it along with the lectures.
Part one of my discussion of Eagleton's chapter on Psychoanalysis.
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