The Theory of Criticism

The study of literary theory has tended to concentrate on very recent developments. This volume, however, establishes both a sense of the continuities from Plato to the present day as well as the discontinuities. These are presented through comparisons and contrasts across the entire field of critical history. Divided into five parts and covering representation; subjectivity; form, structure and system; history and society; morality, class and ideology, each section contains several thematic sections in which extracts from different writers and periods are juxtaposed.

Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1 - Representation 1. Imaginative Representation 2. Mimesis and Realism 3. Nature and Truth 4. Language and Representation Part II - Subjectivity 1. Wit Judgement, Fancy and Imagination 2. Genius, Nature vs Art 3. Emotive Theories 4 Subjective criticism and the reader's reponse 5. Unconscious Processes Part III - Form, System and Structure 1. The Aesthetic Dimension 2. Unity and Literariness 3. Ambiguity and Polysemy 4. Impersonality and the 'death' of the author 5. Rhetoric - Style and point of view 6. Structuree and system 7. Structure and Indeterminacy Part IV - History and Society 1. Tradition and Intertextuality 2. History 3. Literature and 'life' 4. Class and Gender Index