The Serious Student's Guide to Western Culture: Volume 1: Analysis of American, British, and World Literature (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781511613729)

The Serious Student's Guide to Western Culture (c) is an extraordinary series of reference works designed for students and readers at any level who want to learn more about the basic concepts of literature and understand the cultural background that has influenced works of great literature during the past 2,000 years. The reference series is conveniently arranged in separate volumes so the student can focus on one particular area of study or purchase all three volumes at a discount to obtain comprehensive coverage of all areas. Please see separate listing for the combined set of three volumes to obtain the discount. The first three volumes focus on ideas in Western culture needed to understand literature. Volumes 4 and 5 focus on related areas of English composition and vocabulary building. These texts examine most of the important ideas in Western culture to allow the reader to develop a deeper understanding of the world's great literature. Each volume presents a clear, concise explanation of important concepts in Western culture and provides many examples from specific texts. Although these texts are designed primarily for the study of literature, they can be read as stand-alone texts for the enjoyment of learning new ideas. Volume 1 of this series presents a comprehensive overview of world literature with an emphasis on British and American authors. This volume provides essential information on the development of these major literary genres: novel, drama, poetry, and short stories. The text examines the basic elements of these genres and presents a comparison of genres. The next section examines the major themes of American and European literature from the Renaissance to contemporary times. The text includes a comprehensive section on the major literary movements and periods from the Anglo-Saxon period to modern times in British literature and from Colonial period to contemporary times in American literature. The next section presents comprehensive coverage of the major categories of literature such as science fiction, detective novels, women's literature, great love stories, dystopian and utopian literature, ghost and horror stories, westerns, theatre of the absurd, and many more categories. This text also includes an overview of literature for each of the major countries in the world and lists the most influential writers and works for each country. This text includes a comprehensive dictionary of the most common terms encountered in the study of literature with special sections for poetry, drama, and rhetoric. The dictionary includes expanded definitions for 36 of the most common terms in the study of literature. The final section presents an overview of literary criticism and examines the elements of criticism, categories of criticism, modern schools of criticism, and 48 important literary critics followed by a list of most important texts and reference works in literary criticism.

Author: Richard A. Branyon
ISBN-10: 1511613726
ISBN-13: 9781511613729
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Language: English
Published: 04/08/2015
Pages: 412
Format: Paperback
Weight: 2.09lbs
Size: 11.02h x 8.50w x 0.84d