English Literary Criticism

The book is a history of Western literary criticism and a general introduction to the subject of literary criticism and theory. It follows the survey approach, discussing English literary critics in a historical-chronological order. It is primarily designed to serve as a text/reference book for undergraduate and postgraduate students in Indian universities and colleges. The book deals with the critical texts that are prescribed for study in many M.A (English) courses in India. One section of the book surveys the contribution made by the ancient critics since knowledge of classical criticism is essential for an understanding of later developments. Another section (sixteenth to twentieth century) takes for close examination, individually, such of those critics as are prescribed in the curricula of M.A. courses in Indian universities and colleges. The last section on Contemporary Criticism, examines all the movements, with special emphasis on theorists who have initiated these movements. The section, A Glossary of Critical Terms, gives short explanatory notes on critical terms with which a student is expected to be familiar. The Select Bibliography lists important works on criticism which can be consulted for further reading and research.

Amid diverse theoretical debates about the canon in the media and in academia, in English Inside and Out leading proponents of literary studies take a close look at the discipline and the profession and envisage its future.

Aristotle's Poetics has held the attention of scholars and authors through the ages, and Averroes has long been known as "the commentator" on Aristotle. His Middle Commentary on Aristotle's Poetics is important because of its striking content. Here, an author steeped in Aristotle's thought and highly familiar with an entirely different poetical tradition shows in careful detail what is commendable about Greek poetics and commendable as well as blameworthy about Arabic poetics.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

Outlining the controversies that have surrounded the academic discipline of English Literature since its institutionalization in the late nineteenth century, this important book draws on a range of archival sources. It addresses issues that are central to the identity of academic English - how the subject came into existence, and what makes it a specialist discipline of knowledge - in a manner that illuminates many of the crises that have affected the development of modern English studies. Atherton also addresses contemporary arguments about the teaching of literary criticism, including an examination of the reforms to A-Level literature.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. The Critical Revolution Turns Right -- 2. The Scholarly Turn -- 3. The Historicist/Contextualist Paradigm -- 4. The Critical Unconscious -- Conclusion: The Future of Criticism -- Appendix: The Critical Paradigm and T.S. Eliot -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index