Students need a book which can show them actual means of thinking their way into literary texts. Too often they are put off by the resistant surface of literature, or made apprehensive by its eminence, or are convinced that there is nothing more than the obvious to be said about it. This book aims to meet this need. It seeks to involve the student in the actual process of thinking about literature, showing how to start with one idea and move to further and often new insights. To this end it presents a series of demonstrations in which the reader is invited to participate, without having to accept the author’s own interpretations.