This volume provides students of English and American studies with a compact introduction to central subjects of English-American literary studies and explains the basics, methods, and models of narrative text, drama, and poetry analysis. Special emphasis is placed on providing an overview, basic literary terms, literary theoretical approaches, and genre-typical categories and methods of text interpretation. The introduction is suitable for self-study during the course of study as well as a textual basis for an introductory seminar in literary studies.