Relating literature to topics such as dreams, politics, life, death, the ordinary and the uncanny, This Thing Called Literature establishes a sense of why and how literature is an exciting subject to study. This essential guide to the study of literature is as an eloquent celebration of the value and pleasure of reading.

Andrew Bennett is Professor of English at the University of Bristol, UK. He publishes on Romantic and twentieth-century literature and on literary theory. His books include An Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory, Sixth Edition (2023; with Nicholas Royle), Suicide Century: Literature and Suicide from James Joyce to David Foster Wallace (2017) and Ignorance: Literature and Agnoiology (2009).

Nicholas Royle is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of many critical books, including How to Read Shakespeare (2014) and Veering: A Theory of Literature (2011), as well as creative works such as An English Guide to Birdwatching (2017) and David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine (2023).

List of figures

Acknowledgements

1. Studying Literature

PART I: Reading

2. Reading a poem
3. Reading a novel
4. Reading a short story
5. Reading a play
6. Reading creative non-fiction

PART II: Thinking

7. Thinking about literature
8. Thinking critically

PART III: Writing

9. Writing an essay
10. Creative writing: the impossible
11. Writing short fiction

Appendix: the wordbook

Glossary

Bibliography

Index