For those of you out there, who are, for some reason, venturing in the very large field of literary theory, with it's vast majority of works that are not understandable to the average people, I wish you good luck.

You will need it, but as it is true vith everything that you care for, if you have the will you will eventualy succeed and fight your way trough the forest and emerge as a winner.

On that travel you should have your vorthy sidekick who will follow you into the most dangerous situations, to the places with no exits and where dark thing brood in every corner waiting to jump upon tired traveller. On the adventurous field of literary theory, Jonathan Cullers book is that kind of sidekick.

If you are completely lost and you have no idea where to start your investigation of numerous schools of thought and many problems that have arisen trought the time, this very short introduction will cover basics, and when you finish reading if you want to go on, there is very good litterature stated on the last pages which you can consult of your own will.

Here you can find short, and trust me, you can't get any shorter, and yet plausible overview of schools which you can use for your future work.

All in all, for a starter this is very good place to start, and for an experienced adventurer this is the place to remind you why you ventured on your quest at all.

Culler's short introduction is succinct, insightful, and tightly focused. He does not gloss over details; given the limitations of the size of the book, he explains everything clearly outlining major movements in Literary theory. Highly recommended.

Jonathan Culler has done a marvelous job writing exactly what the title promises. Unlike some of the Short Intro books (like the Foucault one), Culler understands that the people reading the book are novices at literary theory and need to be walked through the concepts but not in a condescending way. Part of the problem with having major scholars write short introductions to their field is that they know too much and it is often hard for them to remember how little everyone else knows. But Culler is a rare author who does not seem to have this problem at all. He never lost me.

My favorite thing about this book is the first section which talks about theory in general, and answers the question, "What is theory?" If you've been confused about all the theory terms you've heard, deconstruction, Foucault, Derrida, postmodernism etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah, and if you feel like you don't understand all the categories of theory, and don't understand how literary theory interacts with other types of theory and who all the major thinkers are in this whole movement, then this book, like none I've ever seen, will set you straight.

The rest of the book is great too, though I question the marginalization of the discussion about the different schools of theory by sticking them all in the appendix. Why not give them their own chapter?