Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English

ISBN: 0300037260

Author: Scholes, Robert

Condition: New

Robert Scholes has written an enviable book on the uses and abuses of literary theory in the teaching of literature. One of [his] most forceful pointsis that literary theory is not something a teacher may either use or not use, for teaching itself is an unavoidably theoretical activity.-Gerald Graff, NovelScholes emphasis in Textual Power is indicated by the books subtitle. After a provocative analysis of disciplinary values and departmental tendencies[he] proposes that we must stop teaching literature and start studying textsHis book is essential for college libraries.-R.C. Gebhardt, ChoiceThere is no issue more current, more relevant to the present scene, than the problem of pedagogy and its relation to contemporary theory. Textual Power is an important, provocative, and above all useful contribution to this discussion.-Gregory L. UlmerRobert Scholes, author of Structuralism in Literature and Semiotics and Interpretation among other books, is Alumni-Alumnae University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Brown University.