An Introduction to the Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism

This book is about the Bases in Aesthetics and Poetics. From the Preface: The temper and conditions of the age encourage the critical habit. Literature is no longer the affair of patron or coterie, but of the public. The public reads for itself and estimates. It is not the scholar alone but the artisan who judges the latest novel, satire, or barrack-room ballad. He weighs, compares, and pronounces judgement. And from the multitude of men that are critics unto themselves, and out of the confusion of conflicting opinions, arises the demand for system and principle. What obtains for the disinterested reader obtains a fortiori for those who attempt to express public opinion or to form the taste of others. The reviewer, the student and the teacher of literature, the investigator of literary history or of literary theory, all who make of criticism a discipline, an aim, or a trade are interested in whatever tends to simplify the inquiry. Also see other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.