Comparative Criticism: Volume 2, Text and Reader: A Yearbook

This is a yearbook sponsored by the British Comparative Literature Association in the belief that at the present time, when English studies are being redefined, comparative literary studies represent a major direction forwards. The Yearbook addresses itself to questions of literary theory and criticism; to comparative studies in terms of theme, genre, movement and influence; and to interdisciplinary topics. It includes translations of literary, scholarly and critical works; substantial reviews of major books and tendencies in the field; and the first bibliographies of comparative literature in Britain. Volume 2 is concerned with the relationship between the text and its reader, a topic of particular interest in current criticism. Some of the major theorists and critics in the field are represented: Mikhail Bakhtin, the Russian theorist obliged for much of his life to write under pseudonyms, whose important work, already influential in France, has only begun to be translated into English in recent years; and the contemporary critics, Wolfgang Iser and John Preston, who have led the way in the exploration of the ‘aesthetics of reception’ in the English novel.