Peter Barry, Beginning Theory: A Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, Manchester University Press; 2nd edition

Abstract

Beginning Theory is a concise and lucid introduction to literary theory,
containing a commented bibliography. This book is ideal to assist undergraduate
and graduate students alike in the difficult transition to advanced literary study.
At first, students tend to assume that a text has an authoritative authorial
meaning, and that they must discover that meaning through analysis. With
further study, they come to understand that texts have multiple and unstable
meanings. Each reader brings a new reading to a text, and a text is ultimately a
sum of all readings that ever were and could be. Students learn to reconcile the
instability of a text with the understanding that a work of art conforms to the
workings of its own mysteries, surpassing the intent of its author, as does the
unconscious go beyond the conscious.