Teaching Literature

Teaching Literature is an indispensable guidebook for all teachers of English and American literature in higher education. Drawing on 40 years of international teaching experience, author Elaine Showalter inspires instructors to make their classroom practice as intellectually exciting as their research. Showalter’s wide–ranging reflections address practical, theoretical, and methodological issues. She starts out by describing the anxieties of teaching literature and by outlining the major theories and methods circulating in the field. She then goes on to look separately at teaching drama, fiction, poetry, and theory, and to explore ways to teach teaching. Finally, she investigates the moral issues involved in teaching, and the practical ethics of handling touchy subjects, from sexuality to suicide. Examples from real classes and careers are cited throughout, generating an unusual degree of authenticity and immediacy.

Preface and Acknowledgements. 1. The Anxiety of Teaching. 2. Theories of Teaching Literature. 3. Methods of Teaching Literature. 4. Teaching Poetry. 5. Teaching Drama. 6. Teaching Fiction. 7. Teaching Theory. 8. Teaching Teachers. 9. Teaching Dangerous Subjects. 10. Teaching Literature in Dark Times. Conclusion: The Joy of Teaching Literature. Notes. Index.

Elaine Showalter is Professor of English at Princeton University. She has been a teacher of English and American Literature for 40 years and has taught high school students, undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and other adults in the United States, Canada, Britain and Europe. She has also directed a teaching seminar for graduate students. During 1998 she was President of the Modern Language Association of America. The author’s publications include A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing (1982), The Female Malady: Women, Madness and Society 1830–1980 (1987), Sexual Anarchy (1991), Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women’s Writing (1991) and Inventing Herself (2001).

"It is to Showalter′s great credit that she has written a book that exemplifies many of the virtues she associates with literature: curiosity, empathy, compassion. It is also a deeply personal work. People say that reading literature does not make you a better person. True. But reading this book will make you a better teacher. And maybe make you think better of literature too." Times Higher Education Supplement "Grounded equally in narrative anecdotes and in published scholarship, Teaching Literature is admirably accessible and reader–friendly... I′d recommend it to anyone looking to enliven his or her classroom". Literature and History