Bedford Glossary of Critical & Literary Terms

Ross Murfin, E. A. Lilly Distinguished Professor of English and former provost at Southern Methodist University, has also taught at the University of Virginia, Yale University, and the University of Miami, where he was the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences until 1996. He is the author of Swinburne, Lawrence, Hardy, and the Burden of Belief (1978); The Poetry of D. H. Lawrence: Texts and Contexts (1983); Sons and Lovers: A Novel of Division and Desire (1987); and Lord Jim: After the Truth (1992); and the editor of Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties (1983). The series editor of Bedford/St. Martins popular Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism, he has also edited two volumes in the series, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (Third Edition, 2011) and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (Second Edition, 2006).

Supryia M. Ray is an attorney, writer, and editor. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1998 and summa cum laude from the University of Miami in 1995. She has served in the U.S. federal court system for nine years, as a law clerk to three judges and as a staff attorney focusing on political asylum cases. She has also run her own business as a writer and editor; was in private practice as a litigator; and served as a public-interest environmental advocate, an ESL teacher, and a member of Literacy AmeriCorps. She assisted Ross Murfin in the research and preparation of more than a dozen volumes in the Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series and authored “Contextual Documents and Illustrations” for the second edition of The Scarlet Letter.