Summary
The unique, three-volume Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature offers both a survey of literary themes and a collection of in-depth analyses of how these themes operate in individual literary works. Part I of this comprehensive set contains essays on 50 prominent literary themes, with each essay describing how the theme has evolved over time, how it relates to other important themes, and why this theme is powerful enough to recur so often in great literature. Part II contains essays on specific themes in more than 300 individual classic works of literature. Each section on a particular work contains a brief introduction to the work as well as three essays on different literary themes within the work. Themes covered include alienation, coming of age, heroism, innocence and experience, race, science and technology, and more.
A helpful index and cross-references round out this invaluable set for students of literature.
Literary works covered include:
- Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (related themes: gender, love, pride)
- Emily Dickinson's poems (related themes: death, nature, spirituality)
- Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (related themes: identity, memory, race)
- F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (related themes: the American dream, identity, social class)
- Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (related themes: individual and society, tradition, violence)
- Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (related themes: alienation, ethics, regret)
- Arthur Miller's The Crucible (related themes: alienation, community, spirituality)
- Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" (related themes: death, identity, illness)
- William Shakespeare's Hamlet (related themes: death, justice, love).
Specifications
Index. Cross-references. In three volumes.
About the Author(s)
Jennifer McClinton-Temple holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. She is associate professor of English at King's College in Pennsylvania and is also the general editor of Facts On File's Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature.