An account of the origins and development of literary criticism in the turbulent seventeenth- and eighteenth-century print marketplace.

A History Of English Criticism, Which Was Originally The English Chapter Of Saintsbury S Monumental Three Volume A History Of Criticism And Literary Taste In Europe (1900-04), Was Published Separately In 1911 As A Revised, Adapted And Updated Edition, Complete In Itself. The Book Is The First Of Its Kind And Is Thus Of Great Historical Importance.The History Of English Criticism, As Saintsbury Sees It, Passes Through Three Distinct Stages: (I) The Initial Stage Of Elizabethan Criticism Tentative, Hesitating And Scattered Trying To Assimilate The Numerous Critical Ideas Scattered Throughout The Classical European Literatures (Ii) The Neo-Classic Period Starting With Dryden And Continuing Beyond The Beginning Of The Nineteenth Century And Then (Iii) The Stage Of Modified Or Modernist Criticism. It Is, However, A Continuous Process With Rise And Fall Of Various Schools, Theories, Movements And Attitudes Etc.The First Chapter Examines The Classical Legacy Which Provides The Relevant Critical Framework Against Which The Development Of English Criticism Must Be Seen. In The Subsequent Chapters Professor Saintsbury Discusses At Length The Contributions Of Elizabethan Critics, Dryden And His Contemporaries, The Eighteenth Century Critics, The English Precursors Of Romanticism, The Romantic Critics And The Critics During The Period From 1860 To 1900. The Conclusion Neatly Sums Up The General Plan Of The Book And The Findings Of Professor Saintsbury, The First Academic Historian Of Universal Criticism.Though Profoundly Luminous And Sharply Insightful The Book Makes A Delightful Reading Mainly Because Of The Vigour Of The Overbearing Character Of Saintsbury Who Always Transmits His Opinions With Gusto And Invites His Readers To Share His Views, His Happiness And Hearty Preferences, His Strong Likes And Dislikes.The Book Is A Must For Any Student Of Literary Criticism.

More than fifty specialists have contributed to this new edition of volume 2 of The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. The design of the original work has established itself so firmly as a workable solution to the immense problems of analysis, articulation and coordination that it has been retained in all its essentials for the new edition. The task of the new contributors has been to revise and integrate the lists of 1940 and 1957, to add materials of the following decade, to correct and refine the bibliographical details already available, and to re-shape the whole according to a new series of conventions devised to give greater clarity and consistency to the entries.

This is a comprehensive 1997 account of the history of literary criticism in Britain and Europe between 1660 and 1800. Unlike previous histories, it is not just a chronological survey of critical writing, but a multidisciplinary investigation of how the understanding of literature and its various genres was transformed, at the start of the modern era, by developments in philosophy, psychology, the natural sciences, linguistics, and other disciplines, as well as in society at large. In the process, modern literary theory - at first often implicit in literary texts themselves - emancipated itself from classical poetics and rhetoric, and literary criticism emerged as a full-time professional activity catering for an expanding literate public. The volume is international both in coverage and in authorship. Extensive bibliographies provide guidance for further specialised study.

This comprehensive 1997 account of eighteenth-century literary criticism is now available in paperback.

The history of the most hotly debated areas of literary theory, including structuralism and deconstruction.