In Search of Authority : An Introductory Guide to Literary Theory Book

Excellent: Dr. Bonneycastle is an excellent writer who organizes his material in an easily digestible way, who knows what the essential points he's trying to make are and how to highlight those points, and who has real insight into the material. This was a useful survey of literary theory which, although promoted as an introduction, reads like something more than that.

I was introduced to the theories of Giaccamo Vico who created the terms for the most recognized literary tropes: metaphore, synedoche, metonymy, and irony and who formulated a theory about the four stages of experience which correspond to those tropes. This was a very useful revelation.

There were also excellent guides to Historicism, New Criticism, Structuralism (which covered, among other useful things, the concepts of relation identity and paradigmatic and syntagmatic thinking), Deconstruction, and a variety of other theoretical constructs. Bonneycastle concisely conveys their essential points, and how one arose from the other, giving the reader a good overview of the geography of theory, making it easy for one to decide which particular hills and valleys one would like to explore in more depth.