1st Edition

The Theory of Criticism From Plato to the Present: A Reader

By Raman Selden Copyright 1988
    576 Pages
    by Routledge

    576 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book is divided into five parts and covers: representation; subjectivity; form, structure and system; history and society; morality, class and ideology. Each part contains several thematic sections in which extracts from different writers and periods are juxtaposed. The study of literary theory has tended to concentrate on very recent developments. This volume, however, establishes both a sense of the continuities from Plato to the present day as well as the discontinuities. These are presented through comparisons and contrasts across the entire field of critical history.

    Preface  Acknowledgements  Introduction  Part 1 - Representation  1. Imaginative Representation  2. Mimesis and Realism  3. Nature and Truth  4. Language and Representation  Part II - Subjectivity  1. Wit Judgement, Fancy and Imagination  2. Genius, Nature vs Art  3. Emotive Theories  4 Subjective criticism and the reader's reponse  5. Unconscious Processes  Part III - Form, System and Structure  1. The Aesthetic Dimension  2. Unity and Literariness  3. Ambiguity and Polysemy  4. Impersonality and the 'death' of the author  5. Rhetoric - Style and point of view  6. Structuree and system  7. Structure and Indeterminacy  Part IV - History and Society  1. Tradition and Intertextuality  2. History  3. Literature and 'life'  4. Class and Gender  Index

    Biography

    Raman Selden