The Literary Theory Toolkit: A Compendium of Concepts and Methods

Chapter 1: Introductory Tools for Literary Analysis

1.1. Basics

1.2. Common Critical Practices

1.3. Literary Language

1.4. Hermeneutics

1.5. Major 20^th Century Schools of Critical Analysis

1.6. Socio-Political Analyses

Chapter 2: Tools for Reading Narrative

2.1. Story and Plot: Fabula and Syuzhet

2.2. Order

2.3. Mimesis/Diegesis

2.4. Free Indirect Discourse

2.5. Interior Monologue

2.6. Diachronic and Synchronic

2.7. Intertextuality

2.8. Dialogism

2.9. Chronotope

2.10. Character Zone

2.11. Focalization

2.12. Narrative Codes

Chapter 3: Tools for Reading Poetry

3.1. Tropes

3.2. Elision

3.3. Resemblance

3.4. Objective Correlative

3.5. Language Poetry

3.6. The New Sentence

3.7. Sound Poetry/Concrete Poetry

3.8. Prosody

Chapter 4: Tools for Analyzing Performance

4.1. Performance Studies

4.2. Realist Theatre: Total Acting

4.3. Konstantin Stanislavski

4.4. Lee Strasberg (The Method), David Mamet (Practical Aesthetics), Mary Overlie (The Six Viewpoints Approach)

4.5. Epic Theatre

4.6. Theater of Cruelty

4.7. Actions

4.8. Play

4.9. Happenings

4.10. Performance Art

4.11. Guerrila Theatre

Chapter 5: Tools for Reading Texts as Systems

5.1. Aristotle and Form

5.2. The Literary Work as Object of Rational Empiricism

5.3. Saussurean Linguistics

5.4. Levi-Strauss and Structuralism

5.5. Roman Jakobson’s Communication Model

5.6. Roland Barthes’ Hierarchical Structures

5.7. Ideality and Phenomenology of the Literary Object: Husserl and Derrida

5.8. Dissemination

5.9. Structure as Rhizome: Deleuze and Guattari

5.10. Permutation

5.11. Undecidability: Derrida, Gödel, Lacan

5.12. Simulating Systems: Baudrillard

5.13. Multiplicity: Badiou

Chapter 6: Tools for Social Analysis

6.1. The Public Sphere

6.2. Ideology

6.3. Theories of Power

6.4. The Social Relation