《文学导论》由小说、诗歌、戏剧、文论和附录组成。全书以主要的三类文学体裁，即小说、诗歌、戏剧的特征、要素和流派为主线，精选经典作家的代表作品，通过对文本及具体要素的分析评论，使学习者掌握鉴赏、分析文学作品的必要技巧。尤为重要的是，该教材希望通过对20世纪文学理论的简明介绍，进一步培养学生的文学理论意识。为此，编者们在作品评论中有意识地采用相关理论视角，以期提高学生对具体文学作品的鉴赏力。

Unit One Fiction

1.1 Understanding Fiction

1.2 Plot

 David Herbert Lawrence and Tickets, Please.

1.3 Character

 Sherwood Anderson and The Egg.

1.4 Point of View and Tone

 Margaret Atwood and Rape Fantasies .

1.5 Theme

 James Joyce and The Dead.

1.6 Style

 Ernest Hemingway and In Another Country.

1.7 Selected Commentaries

 Mark Savin: Coming Full Circle: Sherwood Anderson's 'The Egg'.

 L.J.Morrissery: Inner and Outer Perceptions in Joyce's 'The Dead'.

1.8 Further Reading

 Luigi Pirandello and War.

 Student Paper: Defining 'War .

Unit Two Poetry

2.1 Understanding Poetry

2.2 Voice: Speaker and Tone

 Robert Browning and Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister.

2.3 Diction

 William Blake and London.

2.4 Imagery

 Williams Shakespeare and Sonnet 130

2.5 Figures of Speech

 Emily Dickinson and I like to see it lap the Miles.

2.6 Sound and Rhythm

 E.E.Cummings and anyone lived in a pretty how town.

2.7 Selected Commentaries

 Heather Glen: The Stance of Observation in wilham Blake's 'London'.

 William Freedman: Dickinson's 'I lille to see it lap the Miles'.

2.8 Fmlher Reading i

 Robert Frost and Design .

 Student Paper: An Unfolding of Robert Frost's 'Design'.

Unit Three Drachma

3.1 Understanding Drama

3.2 ShakespeareanComedy

 William Shakespeare and A Midsummer Night's Dream

3.3 The Problem Play

 George Bernard Shaw and Widowers' Houses

3.4 The Feminist Theater

 Susan Olaspell and Trifles

3.5 The Theater of the Absurd

 Samuel Beckett and Krapp's Last Tape.

3.6 Selected Commentaries

 Kate Kellaway: Shaw-ly Some Mistake.

 Robert Brustein: Krapp's Last Tape.

3.7 Furthcr Readlng

 Sophocles and Antigone

 Student Paper: Antigone A Struggle between Human and Divine Powers

Unit Four Literary Criticism

4.1 Understanding Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism

4.2 Marxist Criticism

 Raymond williams and Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory.

4.3 Psychoanalytical Criticism

 Sigmund Freud and Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming .

4.4 Feminist Criticism

 Sandra M.Gilbert, Susan Gubar and The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination.

4.5 Postcolonial Criticism

 Edward Said and 'Introduction' to Orientalism.

4.6 Selected Commentaries

 Maggie Humm: Feminist Futures:

 Leela Gandhi: The Limits of Postcolonial Theory.

4.7 Further Reading

 Margaret Atwood and Spelling.

 Student Paper: A Feminist Critique of Margaret Atwood's 'Spelling

Appendixes

 1.Glossary of Literary Terms

 2.Literary Background Information

 3.Sample Papers

 4.Websites for Further Studies

References