50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know (50 Ideas You Really Need to Know Series) [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

I was given "50 literature ideas you really need to know" by John Sutherland as Christmas present this year. I thought this was a great idea... and it shows how well those who gave it to me know me. On its inside cover, it says that the book is "the essential guide to all the important forms, concepts, themes and movements in literature". Does it attain its stated goal? I am not so sure... The "literature ideas" covered by Sutherland are varied and include hermeneutics, intentionalism, translation, genre, closure, allusion, defamiliarisation, metafiction, heteroglossia, or more simple aspects such as libel, lies, ghost-writers and the e-book. Each "idea" is covered in four pages, with a summary, some kind of definition, sometimes a few examples, and a lot of ranting. Don't expect to find clear definitions of each idea or to end up with clear concepts in your mind. If anything, you may end up more confused. Sutherland's writing is great, and this book feels more like a literature exercise than anything else. It certainly is NOT a practical guide. But it is fun to read, and a starting point for some of the chosen concepts. For others, such as the e-book or literature lies, it is disappointing. However, I have to be honest, it would be hard to cover any of those points in any meaningful way in only four pages.

This volume is part of a popular series 'Fifty Ideas' Why not five , ten twenty one- hundred two thousand? Perhaps ' fifty' is the right size the commercial package. Anyway cynicism aside the book is written by a veteran literary critic who knows the field well. He provides a lot of interesting information and much which will keep up-to- date those like myself who studied centuries ago to be 'literary critics' but went in some other direction. The book, I caution, is not a real comprehensive guide, not the kind of primer , not a real 'Dictionary of Literary Terms' such as the one long ago published by M.H.Abrams. It does define and trace in brief the development of basic important terms like 'Irony' and 'Imagery' but it certainly falls short of being the kind of work a beginning student of Literature really needs. I do not think such a student will be helped by learning what 'Bricolage' or 'Fanfic' mean. Again the work is competently written but of course Sunderland's prejudices prevail. At the outset he stresses the importance of humility in approaching Literature but an instant letter pronounces 'The Wasteland' the 'greatest poem' of the twentieth century. Oh 'Sunday Morning' of Wallace Stevens, oh 'Sailing to Byzantium' of Yeats, on tens of other candidates- where is thy wrath? But pettiness aside Sunderland does know his stuff and does tell us much about the contemporary literary scene. He seems particulary impressed, perhaps depressed by the overwhelming number of new Literature titles published each year and the fact that no single individual can ever possibly know it all. He too considers the way the book has developed over the past five- hundred years and wonders what the digital future will make of it. He seems to feel that the old methods of drawing up lists of Classics, and ideal curricula will not provide the readers of the future the keys to where to look.
He does to his credit talk about the pleasure of reading Literature. And there is some pleasure and quite a bit to be learned in reading this work. I enjoyed the small time- line feature within each separate definition, and his effort to show how the concept developed.
Now on to Fifty Ideas you really need to know in religion, architecture, economics, psychology, genetics, management, philosophy, physics and who knows what else and what next.

As a literature junkie I found this book very informative and interesting te read. I learned a lot about different concepts in literature that I didn't even know of! I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to broaden their knowledge of the technical side of literature.