The Present Book Contains A Varied Selection Of Essays Ventured Upon As Exercises In Critical Evaluation Of Texts That Are Relevant In The Existent Literary Context. These Essays Are Certainly Not A Random Pick For Each Of The Works Chosen For Analysis, Whatever Be The Genre Of Writing, Represents The Literature In English Produced By The Native Writers Of A Particular Country. The Two Major Literatures In English Are Indisputably Those Of England And America But There Are Many Other Countries Like Africa, Australia, India And Pakistan Whose Authors Chose To Write In English Because They Felt That English, Despite Being An Alien Language, Would Better Verbalize Their Creative Urge And Lend Itself To An Exploration Of The Immense Possibilities Therein. Most Of The Authors Taken Up For Study In This Book Are Those Who Belong To The Fraternity Of Indian English Writers, Namely Mulk Raj Anand, Shashi Deshpande, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Mahesh Dattani And Manju Kapur. Catering To A Revival Of Interest In The Partition Of India As A Theme In Fiction Are Two Essays Which Deal With The Issue. Other Write-Ups Are On Works (Some In Translation) By Native Writers Of Hitherto Marginalized Countries That Have Now Chosen To Aggressively Assert Themselves Through Their Respective Literatures.The Book, Comprehensive And Rich In Its Contents, Is Highly Informative And Would Prove An Asset To Those Interested In The Diverse Manifestations Of Literature In English. It Would Be Of Particular Appeal To Those Who Wish To Explore The Works Of Indian English Writers Of Repute.

"This book is a statement of my views on a number of problems in literary theory and contemporary criticism. But it is also - as any theoretical study must be - a progress report, a record of inquiry that has not yet concluded. In a sense, a book on "theory" cannot really end. At a certain point, work on it ceases, even though one continues to think critically and skeptically about the problems - and the solutions - that the book contains." -- Preface. p. xi.

Aristotle's Poetics has held the attention of scholars and authors through the ages, and Averroes has long been known as "the commentator" on Aristotle. His Middle Commentary on Aristotle's Poetics is important because of its striking content. Here, an author steeped in Aristotle's thought and highly familiar with an entirely different poetical tradition shows in careful detail what is commendable about Greek poetics and commendable as well as blameworthy about Arabic poetics.

In this scholarly text, Vaughan selects some of the best critics of English literature up to his writing (1922) and looks at their work on various types of literature: poetry; dramas; prose. Also unusually he chooses Botticelli, the Italian painter, as one of those critics whom he references.

This timely volume presents a rich and absorbing selection of extracts from over two hundred leading literary critics of the last several decades, writing on many of the most widely studied literary texts in English, from Shakespeare to Toni Morrison. Structured chronologically, working through familiar literary periods, this book presents illuminating and stimulating examples of critical readings of familiar texts, demonstrating a variety of methods and approaches to critical practice. The range of critical voices represented – from Abrams and Adelman to Zimmerman and Žižek – provides students with eloquent and insightful models of how to read, think and write about texts so that they can form their own critical responses and develop as independent readers. The book also shows how criticism has developed over time and how it has always been intimately involved in wider cultural, social and political debates. Connections between criticism, culture and politics are explored in the book’s wide-ranging first chapter. In his warm, clear and engaging style, Richard Jacobs provides the perfect introduction to literature and criticism. Literature and the Critics is a book to which students will want to return throughout their courses as they read more widely and encounter new texts and critical voices.

Bloom, the best-known literary critic of our time, shares his extensive knowledge of and profound joy in the works of a constellation of major writers, including Shakespeare, Cervantes, Austen, Dickinson, Melville, Wilde, and O'Connor in this eloquent invitation to readers to read and read well.