This clear, succinct primer for literary theory provides students with a useful guide to contemporary theory and methodologies. Theoretical overviews summarize each literary approach for clarification and Application Essays by well-known scholars, on works by authors such as Shakespeare, Austen, Melville, Faulkner, and Angelou, represent the stated principles. The text helps students generate consistent, well-focused analyses based on any of ten critical methodologies, including New Criticism, Psychoanalytic Analysis, Deconstruction, Feminist Analysis, and New Historicism.