A History of Literary Criticism and Theory: From Plato to the Present

This book is a guide to the history of literary criticism from antiquity to the present day. It not only provides an overview of the major movements, figures, and texts of literary criticism, but also supplies the cultural, historical, and philosophical background which enables students to see them in context.

The organization of the book is broadly chronological. Starting with a comprehensive section on classical literary criticism, it shows how the central philosophical principles of Plato and Aristotle not only underlie their specific comments on literature, but also lay out the foundations and categories of much subsequent Western thought. Similarly, for each subsequent period, the book combines back ground information, whether on the philosophy of Locke, the history of the French Revolution, the political theories of Marx and Engels, or Freud's views on civilization withy coverage of the major figures and texts of literary-critical thought.