Defining Literary Criticism

Outlining the controversies that have surrounded the academic discipline of English Literature since its institutionalization in the late nineteenth century, this important book draws on a range of archival sources. It addresses issues that are central to the identity of academic English - how the subject came into existence, and what makes it a specialist discipline of knowledge - in a manner that illuminates many of the crises that have affected the development of modern English studies. Atherton also addresses contemporary arguments about the teaching of literary criticism, including an examination of the reforms to A-Level literature.

'Thoughtful, well written and offering fresh perspectives on writers as diverse as A. C. Bradley and Virginia Woolf...[a] delightful book.' - Times Literary Supplement

Autorentext
CAROL ATHERTON teaches English at Bourne Grammar School in Lincolnshire, UK.

Inhalt
Acknowledgements Introduction PART ONE: INSTITUTIONS Histories of English: The Critical Background English in the Universities PART TWO: PHILOSOPHIES AND PRACTITIONERS Critics and Professors Criticism and the Modernists: Woolf, Murry, Orage Methods and Institutions: Eliot, Richards and Leavis PART THREE: CURRENT DEBATES Revising English: Theory and Practice Conclusion Bibliography Index