Literary Studies in Action is a new kind of textbook: a combination of workbook and handbook. Instead of just outlining the discipline of literary studies, Literary Studies in Action helps the student to answer questions about its history and current practice: about what to do and how to do it, and why literature has been and can be studied. In doing so, it attempts to develop an informed view of where the object of our study in literary studies’ fits into larger patterns of knowledge and thought. The numerous examples chosen for analysis range over the last thousand years of writing in English throughout the world, and include a variety of different kinds of texts. Literary Studies in Action also contains over a hundred practical activities for the student, to develop practical analytical skills and structure theoretical work. This is a textbook for the times, which addresses itself brilliantly to the twin phenomena of expanding horizons and diminishing resources of English studies.‘ - David Lodge