History of Modern Literary Criticism, Volume 7

Author: (American) Wellek
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-01-01
Features: René Wellek's History of Modern Literary Criticism is the largest and most authoritative work in this academic field to date. It adopts the theoretical framework of New Criticism, Russian Formalism, and I.A. Richards' aesthetics to systematically trace the development of Western literary criticism over the past two centuries. At the same time, Wellek focuses on portraiture and case studies of critics, delving deeply into each specific issue, avoiding hasty judgments and superficial generalizations. His experience and lessons in the methodology of critical history are also of great reference value to us. Readers of these two volumes will notice that the organization and referencing formats of the chapters differ. Some chapters provide extensive documentation, with each quoted sentence or phrase offering page numbers from the original book or journal. However, other chapters sometimes refer to works or articles discussed and commented on in a less specific manner. The reason for this discrepancy in writing is quite simple. In 1986, the author was involved in an accident and became immobile. Since then, he has been confined to bed, and to this day, he has been unable to visit the Yale University Library regularly. Out of necessity, I relied on the assistance of several secretaries, primarily students connected with Yale. They delivered books and journals to me, recorded my dictations, transcribed them, and then printed the text for my review. I checked these drafts, made necessary revisions, and ensured they were compiled in the correct order, turning them into the final manuscript. This explanation also serves as an apology for the shortcomings in the last two volumes, and all flaws will ultimately be my responsibility.