The Serious Student's Guide to Western Culture (c) is an extraordinary series of reference works designed for students and readers at any level who want to learn more about the basic concepts of literature and understand the cultural background that has influenced works of great literature during the past 2,000 years. The reference series is conveniently arranged in separate volumes so the student can focus on one particular area of study or purchase all three volumes at a discount to obtain comprehensive coverage of all areas. Please see separate listing for the combined set of three volumes to obtain the discount. The first three volumes focus on ideas in Western culture needed to understand literature. Volumes 4 and 5 focus on related areas of English composition and vocabulary building. These texts examine most of the important ideas in Western culture to allow the reader to develop a deeper understanding of the world's great literature. Each volume presents a clear, concise explanation of important concepts in Western culture and provides many examples from specific texts. Although these texts are designed primarily for the study of literature, they can be read as stand-alone texts for the enjoyment of learning new ideas. Volume 1 of this series presents a comprehensive overview of world literature with an emphasis on British and American authors. This volume provides essential information on the development of these major literary genres: novel, drama, poetry, and short stories. The text examines the basic elements of these genres and presents a comparison of genres. The next section examines the major themes of American and European literature from the Renaissance to contemporary times. The text includes a comprehensive section on the major literary movements and periods from the Anglo-Saxon period to modern times in British literature and from Colonial period to contemporary times in American literature. The next section presents comprehensive coverage of the major categories of literature such as science fiction, detective novels, women's literature, great love stories, dystopian and utopian literature, ghost and horror stories, westerns, theatre of the absurd, and many more categories. This text also includes an overview of literature for each of the major countries in the world and lists the most influential writers and works for each country. This text includes a comprehensive dictionary of the most common terms encountered in the study of literature with special sections for poetry, drama, and rhetoric. The dictionary includes expanded definitions for 36 of the most common terms in the study of literature. The final section presents an overview of literary criticism and examines the elements of criticism, categories of criticism, modern schools of criticism, and 48 important literary critics followed by a list of most important texts and reference works in literary criticism.
About the Author: Dr. Richard A. Branyon has experienced a rather peripatetic career in academia, but all of his past experiences have contributed to his appreciation of literature and other disciplines in the humanities. Dr. Branyon earned his MBA from UNC-Chapel Hill during the early 1980s with a special interest in finance and new ventures. He worked as an independent management consultant for about five years and provided advice to dozens of companies in many areas of management. However, the author became disenchanted with the world of business where success is always measured in money, and he returned to academia and pursued his MA and PhD in American and British literature. During graduate school, he pursued his interests in utopian and dystopian literature, the concepts of determinism and freedom of choice, literature related to psychology, and the influence of science and ethics on literature. The author's dissertation focused on recent theories of New Historicism and the ways that readers can interpret texts through cultural background and historical events. Although he maintains an interest in these areas, in more recent years he has expanded his interests to include women's literature, Southern literature, great love stories of Western culture, the role of medicine in literature, contemporary novels, and young adult novels. During the past 20 years, Dr. Branyon has taught at several major universities in North Carolina and often works with first-year students as they make the challenging transition from high school to college. He has taught courses in the survey of literature, American and British literature, world literature, composition and rhetoric, business communication, oral communication, and several interdisciplinary courses in the humanities including his favorite: Popular Culture and Literature in the 1950s and 1960s. Dr. Branyon has taught composition to first-year students every year during the past 20 years, and he has gained a wealth of information on methods to help students develop their communication abilities. The author has also served as mentor and tutor to dozens of students in English Education and helped them prepare for the content and pedagogy sections of the Praxis exams. Also, Dr. Branyon has worked with several graduate students who used his reference texts in their preparation for comprehensive oral exams in their Master's and doctorate programs.