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Sequel 4th Edition

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R.C. Guches Fourth Edition 304 pages $24.95 ISBN 978-0-917962-97-4

A Handbook for the Critical Analysis of Literature

Level:High school and college students.

The popularity of Sequel among students and instructors lies in its comprehensive yet concise approach. Using poems, short stories, plays, and films, the text teaches students how literature is structured and analyzed. Related assignments (short exercises and essays) ensure mastery of the concepts and provide the opportunity for original and critical thinking.

In the fourth edition, Chapter 5 – Analyzing the Performing Arts includes new student papers and exercises as well as an updated List of Films for analysis.

Sequel provides examples of the following.

Written elements:

  • figurative language
  • allusion
  • imagery
  • irony

Conceptual structures:

  • Romanticism
  • Realism
  • Primitivism
  • Naturalism

Styles of analysis and theory:

  • biographical
  • historical (including catharsis and the components of tragedy)
  • psychological
  • archetypal
  • feminist

The last unit covers current developments in literary criticism and encourages students to explore and develop their own approaches.

Poems cited are by Coleridge, Snyder, Plath, Dickinson, Eliot, Frost, Tennyson, Whitman and others. Prose examples are by Welty, Reed, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Hemingway, London, Poe, Crane, Chopin and Steinbeck. Drama examples include plays by Strindberg and Synge.