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Literary Criticism: A New History

Online ISBN:
9780748652099
Print ISBN:
9780748615636
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press
Book

Literary Criticism: A New History

Published online:
22 March 2012
Published in print:
4 July 2008
Online ISBN:
9780748652099
Print ISBN:
9780748615636
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press

Abstract

Did you know that Aristotle thought the best tragedies were those which ended happily? Or that the first mention of the motor car in literature may have been in 1791, in James Boswell's Life of Johnson? Or that it was not unknown in the nineteenth century for book reviews to be 30,000 words long? These are just a few of the facts to be found in this history of literary criticism. From the Ancient Greek period to the present day, we learn about critics' lives, the times in which they lived, and how the same problems of interpretation and valuation persist through the ages. In this book, the author questions whether the ‘theory wars’ of recent years have lost sight of the actual literature, and makes surprising connections between criticism and a range of subjects, including the rise of money. This is an informative, intriguing, and often-provocative account of the history of literary criticism, put into context.

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