Sentence Structure:introduces the evidence for sentence structure and reveals its purposeis based on a problem-solving approach to languageteaches the reader how to identify word classes, such as noun, preposition and demonstrativeuses simple tree structures to analyse sentencescontains numerous exercises to encourage practical skills of sentence analysisincludes a database and exercises that compare the structure of Englis...

Poetry, defined as language divided into lines, is found in most known human cultures. This masterful survey of poetry and its constituent components demonstrates the functions performed by metre, rhyme, alliteration and parallelism, arguing that each line of a poem fits as a whole unit into the limited capacity of human working memory. Using examples from around the world, Fabb surveys the wide varieties of poetry and the ways they are performed, including those in songs and signed litera...

This book offers a psychological account of thrills (goosebumps and tears), of the epiphanic experience of seeing ordinary things in a profoundly new way, and of the experience of the sublime. The unifying characteristic of these ‘strong experiences’ is that they all begin with surprise. They are important in literature: literature is about these experiences, and literature can cause these experiences. This book offers an overview of theories of these kinds of experience, and of what might...

The first book that literature students should read, this guide reveals the distinct set of skills, conventions and methods of essay and dissertation writing.Taking students through the various stages of writing, from planning to final submission, it offers specific guidelines and a lively, detailed commentary on actual examples of student work at each stage.

`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