本书对于如何学习文学提供了一系列方法指导，涉及文学文本、文学批评、文学理论、写作等，同时也对学习中就图书馆、网络、期刊等各类信息资源的运用提供了指南。另外，本书还系统阐释了几大主要流派和理论，并对于有影响的文学理论家逐一做了介绍。

Introduction
Introducing your companion
Using the companion
Section I Guide to studying literature at university
Introduction
What type of guide is this?
Is such a guide really necessary?
'Literary', 'primary', 'secondary': a note on terminology
Getting organized
Your course of study
Preparing for courses
Getting the most from lectures, seminars and tutorials
Using the library
Reading literary texts
Reading and studying: general points
Reading prose fiction: novels, novellas and short stories
Reading drama
Reading poetry
Literary criticism
What is literary criticism?
How to find relevant criticism
Using criticism
Writing essays
Analysing the question
Formulating and structuring an argument
Applying literary theory in essays
Writing
Guidelines on presentation/style
Plagiarism and how to avoid it
Making a presentation
Exams
Preparation and revision
Taking exams
Section 2 Guide to the use of electronic resources
Some introductory comments
Finding primary electronic information
Issues of reliability
Reading in the electronic age
Searching and analysing electronic texts
Finding secondary materials
Library catalogues
Online databases
Journals and periodicals
Searching the Internet for literary resources
Evaluating online secondary sources
Useful sites
Documenting electronic media
Revising and editing electronically
Safety measures
Section 3 Theories and approaches
Introduction: living with theory
Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain
Reinventing the wheel
The theoretical 'object'
Types of theory
Descriptive or prescriptive?
Literature-specific?
Butcher or biologist?
School or theory?
Chosen or thrust-upon?
Theory and method
A note on our groupings
Formalisms
Russian formalism
The Prague school
New Criticism
The hermeneutic tradition
Hermeneutics
Phenomenology
Reception theory
Reader-response criticism
Structuralism and its progeny
Structuralism
Semiology/semiotics
Narratology
Post-structuralism
Deconstruction
Pragmatics and the reaction against structuralism
Speech act theory
Psychological and psychoanalytic theories
Psychoanalytic criticism
Archetypal criticism
Cognitive criticism
'Isms'
Marxist theory and criticism
The Frankfurt school
New historicism and cultural materialism
Thing theory
Post-colonialism
Ecocriticism
Feminism
Queer theory
Section 4 Guide to literary theorists
AUERBACH, Erich (1892-1957)
BAKHTIN, Mikhail Mikhailovich (1895-1975)
BARTHES, Roland (1915-80)
BEAUVOIR, Simone de (1908-86)
BENJAMIN, Walter (1892-1940)
BHABHA, Homi K. (1949-)
BLOOM, Harold (1930-)
BRECHT, Bertolt (1898-1956)
CIXOUS, Helene (1937-)
DERRIDA, Jacques (1930-2004)
EAGLETON, Terry (1943-)
ECO, Umberto (1932-)
ELIOT, T[homas] S[tearns] (1888-1965)
EMPSON, Sir William (1906-84)
FISH, Stanley (1938-)
FOUCAULT, Michel (1926-84)
FRYE, Northrop (1912-91)
GATES, Henry Louis Jr (1950-)
GENETTE, Gerard (1930-)
GILBERT, Sandra (1936-) and GUBAR, Susan (1944-)
GOLDMANN, Lucien (1913-70)
GREENBLATT, Stephen Jay (1943-)
HIRSCH, E[ric] D [onald] Jr (1928-)
HOLLAND, Norman N. (1927-)
HOOKS, bell (1952-)
IRIGARAY, Luce (1932-)
ISER, Wolfgang (1926-2007)
JAKOBSON, Roman Osipovich (1896-1982)
JAMESON, Fredric R. (1934-)
JAUSS, Hans Robert (1921-97)
KRISTEVA, Julia (1941-)
LACAN, Jacques (1901-81)
LEAVIS, F[rank] R[aymond] (1895-1978)
LEVINAS, Emmanuel (1905 [12 January 1906, Old Style]-1995)
LUKACS, Georg (Gyorgy) (1885-1971)
LYOTARD, Jean-Francois (1924-98)
McGANN, Jerome (1937-)
de MAN, Paul (1919-83)
MILLER, J. Hillis (1928-)
MILLETT, Kate (1934-)
MORETTI, Franco (19