First published in 1957, Literary Criticism: A Short History traces our aesthetic heritage from its classical origins up to the contemporary state of criticism in the English-speaking world. Divided into four volumes, each book adopts a fair and objective position in the presentation of various critical positions, and each critical theory is considered not only in competition with other critical theories, but also in vital dialectic with the creative literature of its own time. Volume One focuses on Classical criticism, exploring Socrates and the Rhapsode, poetry as structure, tragedy and comedy, Roman classicism, and some Medieval themes.

First published in 1957, Literary Criticism: A Short History traces our aesthetic heritage from its classical origins up to the contemporary state of criticism in the English-speaking world. Divided into four volumes, each book adopts a fair and objective position in the presentation of various critical positions, and each critical theory is considered not only in competition with other critical theories, but also in vital dialectic with the creative literature of its own time. Volume Three focuses on Romantic criticism and covers poetic diction, German ideas, imagination, rhapsodic didacticism, the Arnoldian prophecy, art as propaganda, art for art’s sake, expressionism, and the Historical Method.

First published in 1957, Literary Criticism: A Short History traces our aesthetic heritage from its classical origins up to the contemporary state of criticism in the English-speaking world. Divided into four volumes, each book adopts a fair and objective position in the presentation of various critical positions, and each critical theory is considered not only in competition with other critical theories, but also in vital dialectic with the creative literature of its own time. Volume Four focuses on Modern criticism and covers tragedy and comedy, symbolism, I. A. Richards’ critical theory, the semantic principle, Eliot and Pound, fiction and drama, and myth and archetype.

First published in 1957, Literary Criticism: A Short History traces our aesthetic heritage from its classical origins up to the contemporary state of criticism in the English-speaking world. Divided into four volumes, each book adopts a fair and objective position in the presentation of various critical positions, and each critical theory is considered not only in competition with other critical theories, but also in vital dialectic with the creative literature of its own time. Volume Two focuses on Neo-Classical criticism and covers Medieval themes, the Sixteenth Century, English Neo-Classicism, late seventeenth-century themes, rhetoric and Neo-Classic wit, poetry as pictures, genius, emotion, and association, and Samuel Johnson.