Palmer clearly states that his purpose is to explain 1the ways of critics to theatre practitioners, the ways of theatre to inexperienced reviewers, and the dynamic convergence of theatre and critic to anyone interested in theatre.' . . . The work is a well-written `primer' for writers and it will be useful primarily to performers who object to unfavorable `criticsm' without understanding the nature and purpose of reviewing. Accessible to general readers and undergraduates. Choice Palmer begins with an examination of the theatrical review as a medium for informing and entertaining theatregoers, documenting events of artistic of community importance, and supporting theatre through critical evaluation and publicity. He next comments on how journalistic pressures affect reviewers. Citing brief examples from hundreds of reviews, the author devotes a chapter to each of the elements that needs to be covered in a review, including performers, script, direction, music, and choreography, together with stage and lighting design and other physical aspects of the production. The final chapter develops criteria for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a theatrical review, based on aesthetic standards, the cultural tastes of theatregoers, and the interests of the community. Palmer's experience as both a theatre professional and a journalist gives him an intimate understanding of the antagonism that often develops between reviewers and those who feel themselves to be the target of irresponsible criticism. His book provides a clear perspective on theatrical matters and guidelines that will help to improve standards of reviewing and create an appreciation of the essential relationship between the theatre and its critics.

This Thing We Call Literature collects ten essays from the combative, cantankerous cultural critic Arthur Krystal. The essays in this compact volume, mostly coming from The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Chronicle of Higher Education--all share Krystal's conviction that literature and the humanities more broadly are going down the tubes"

Traces the history of canonical criticism and assesses current trends in biblical analysis, and explores the relationship between contemporary interpretations of holy texts and their ancient meanings.

Given the popular-level conversations on phenomena like the Gospel of Thomas and Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, as well as the current gap in evangelical scholarship on the origins of the New Testament, Michael Kruger’s Canon Revisited meets a significant need for an up-to-date work on canon by addressing recent developments in the field. He presents an academically rigorous yet accessible study of the New Testament canon that looks deeper than the traditional surveys of councils and creeds, mining the text itself for direction in understanding what the original authors and audiences believed the canon to be. Canon Revisited provides an evangelical introduction to the New Testament canon that can be used in seminary and college classrooms, and read by pastors and educated lay leaders alike. In contrast to the prior volumes on canon, this volume distinguishes itself by placing a substantial focus on the theology of canon as the context within which the historical evidence is evaluated and assessed. Rather than simply discussing the history of canon—rehashing the Patristic data yet again—Kruger develops a strong theological framework for affirming and authenticating the canon as authoritative. In effect, this work successfully unites both the theology and the historical development of the canon, ultimately serving as a practical defense for the authority of the New Testament books.

One of our most important contemporary critics, Marjorie Perloff has been a widely published and influential reviewer, especially of poetry and poetics, for over fifty years. Circling the Canon, Volume I covers roughly the first half of Perloff’s career, beginning with her first ever review, on Anthony Hecht’s The Hard Hours. The reviews in this volume, culled from a wide range of scholarly journals, literary reviews, and national magazines, trace the evolution of poetry in the mid- to late twentieth century as well as the evolution of Perloff as a critic. Many of the authors whose works are reviewed in this volume are major figures, such as W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Plath, and Frank O’Hara. Others, including Mona Van Duyn and Richard Hugo, were widely praised in their day but are now all but forgotten. Still others—David Antin, Edward Dorn, or the Language poets—exemplify an avant-garde that was to come into its own.

This book was first published in Hindi under the title Hindi Alochana mein Canon-Nirman ki Prakriya in 2015. It was acclaimed as one of the first critical studies of the processes of canonization (pratimanikaran) in Hindi. Indeed, the word 'canon' was used by the author to ask a new set of questions about the development of languages of criticism in Hindi, moving beyond the available vocabulary of man (worth), mulya (value), pratiman (epitome), and manak (evaluation). In the process, the theological roots of canon formation were shown to be foundational in the making of the Hindi critical lexicon and canon. This book presents a systematic but critical account of the beginnings, development and history of the process of canonization in Hindi via such exemplary figures as George Grierson, Garcin de Tassy, Ramchandra Shukla, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Ram Vilas Sharma, Muktibodh, Namwar Singh, Nirmal Verma, and Vijaydev Narayan Sahi. It proposes an intellectual history of Hindi criticism in the twentieth century, which today faces the challenges of a decanonization move in the form of feminist and Dalit thought.

The literary critic defends the importance of Western literature from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Kafka and Beckett in this acclaimed national bestseller. NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list—it is a “heroically brave, formidably learned” defense of the great works of literature that comprise the traditional Western Canon. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the essential writers of the western literary tradition (The New York Times Book Review). Placing William Shakespeare at the “center of the canon,” Bloom examines the literary contributions of Dante Alighieri, John Milton, Jane Austen, Emily Dickenson, Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Pablo Neruda, and many others. Bloom's book, much-discussed and praised in publications as diverse as The Economist and Entertainment Weekly, offers a dazzling display of erudition and passion. “An impressive work…deeply, rightly passionate about the great books of the past.”—Michel Dirda, The Washington Post Book World