This comprehensive guide to the history of literary criticism from antiquity to the present day provides an authoritative overview of the major movements, figures, and texts of literary criticism, as well as surveying their cultural, historical, and philosophical contexts. This work: supplies the cultural, historical and philosophical background to the literary criticism of each era; enables students to see the development of literary criticism in context; is organised chronologically, from classical literary criticism through to deconstruction; considers a wide range of thinkers and events from the French Revolution to Freud’s views on civilization; and, can be used alongside any anthology of literary criticism or as a coherent stand-alone introduction.