New Formalist Criticism: Theory and Practice attempts to situate New Formalist criticism in contemporary theory and practice, arguing for its singularity and value, tracing its roots and development, exploring its role in other critical modes and in non-literary disciplines, offering analyses of a range of texts, and portraying literary study as a provisional rehearsal of existential postures and attitudes in the inevitably historical present of the reader. Critically sophisticated, but written in a lucid and engaging style, with numerous examples and concrete analyses, New Formalist Criticism: Theory and Practice will speak to a wide readership. While its principal audience will be professional literary scholars and graduate students, it will also be extraordinarily useful to undergraduate students interested in critical method and the study of literature - how we read and why we read. New Formalist Criticism: Theory and Practice will invigorate the study of literary form and help redraw the map of contemporary criticism.

New Formalist Criticism defines and theorizes a mode of formalist criticism that is theoretically compatible with current thinking about literature and theory. New formalism anticipates a move in literary studies back towards the text and, in so doing, establishes itself as one of the most exciting areas of contemporary critical theory.