Literary Criticism from Plato to Post-Theory

M. A. R. HABIB is Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University and a leading scholar in literary criticism, philosophy, and translation. He is the author of Hegel and the Foundations of Literary Theory, Hegel and Empire: From Postcolonialism to Globalism, and Literary Studies: A Norton Guide. Habib has edited The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Volume VI and the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. His work also includes several translations of Urdu poetry and Islamic texts.

Habib has an unrivaled ability to synthesize complex doctrines in clear and lively prose, hence this perfectly balanced introduction to literary criticism – a must-read for all students in the humanities.Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Literary Criticism from Plato to Post-Theory accomplishes the nearly impossible in being both concise and exhaustive; it works as a book of reference, a history of philosophy, and a lucid scholarly argument for the value of literature. Habib traces the history of literary criticism through six major periods, whose features are described in succinct yet nuanced detail with illuminating commentary on chief philosophers, theorists, and poets. In every chapter, but most urgently in the last one addressing our present times, Habib’s careful analysis of material contexts, philosophical concepts, and literary texts confirms that all new theories have long histories, that no discovery is without antecedents, that judgments, tastes, and values are never autonomous. Clear and wonderfully readable, Habib’s book is as engrossing as it is convincing.Harold Schweizer, author of On Waiting and On Lingering and Literature

• Acknowledgments xiIntroduction 1Part I Classical Literary Criticism and Rhetoric 71 Classical Literary Criticism 9Introduction to the Classical Period 9Plato (428– ca. 347 BC) 10Aristotle (384– 322 BC) 152 The Traditions of Rhetoric 23Greek Rhetoric 23Roman Rhetoric 27The Subsequent History of Rhetoric: An Overview 30The Legacy of Rhetoric 313 Greek and Latin Criticism During the Roman Empire 35Horace (65– 8 BC) 35Longinus (First Century AD) 37Neo- Platonism 39Part II The Medieval Era 474 The Early Middle Ages 49Historical Background 49Intellectual and Theological Currents 515 The Later Middle Ages 57Historical Background 57Intellectual Currents of the Later Middle Ages 58The Traditions of Medieval Criticism 60Transitions: Medieval Humanism 71Part III The Early Modern Period to the Enlightenment 776 The Early Modern Period 79Historical Background 79Intellectual Background 80Confronting the Classical Heritage 86Defending the Vernacular 89Poetics and the Defense of Poetry 91Poetic Form and Rhetoric 947 Neoclassical Literary Criticism 98French Neoclassicism 100Neoclassicism in England 1028 The Enlightenment 114Historical and Intellectual Background 114Enlightenment Literary Criticism: Language, Taste, and Imagination 1199 The Aesthetics of Kant and Hegel 129Immanuel Kant (1724– 1804) 129Hegel (1770– 1831) 134Part IV Romanticism and the Later Nineteenth Century 14310 Romanticism 145Germany 148France 151England 153America 16011 Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, and Aestheticism 168Historical Background: The Later Nineteenth Century 168Realism and Naturalism 169Symbolism and Aestheticism 17412 The Heterological Thinkers 181Arthur Schopenhauer (1788– 1860) 181Friedrich Nietzsche (1844– 1900) 182Henri Bergson (1859– 1941) 185Matthew Arnold (1822– 1888) 185Part V The Twentieth Century: A Brief Introduction 189Introduction 18913 From Liberal Humanism to Formalism 193The Background of Modernism 194The Poetics of Modernism: W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot 196Formalism 197Russian Formalism 197The New Criticism 20214 Socially Conscious Criticism of the Earlier Twentieth Century 206F. R. Leavis 206Marxist and Left- Wing Criticism 207The Fundamental Principles of Marxism 208Marxist Literary Criticism: A Historical Overview 210Early Feminist Criticism: Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf 21215 Phenomenology, Existentialism, Structuralism 219Phenomenology 220Existentialism 220Heterology 223Structuralism 22416 The Era of Poststructuralism (I): Later Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction 230Later Marxist Criticism 231Psychoanalysis 233Deconstruction 24017 The Era of Poststructuralism (II): Postmodernism, Modern Feminism, Gender Studies 247Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929) 250Jean Baudrillard (1929– 2007) 251Jean- François Lyotard (1924– 1998) 252bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins; b. 1952) 253Modern Feminism 253Gender Studies 25818 The Later Twentieth Century: New Historicism, Reader-Response Theory, Postcolonial Criticism, Cultural Studies 264The New Historicism 265Reader- Response and Reception Theory 268Postcolonial Criticism 270Cultural Studies 276Part VI The Twenty- First Century: A Brief Introduction 27919 Criticism and the Public Sphere 283A New Liberalism 283The New Theorists of Revolution 284Critical Race Feminism 28720 The Aesthetic (Re)Turn 291Introduction 291The New Aestheticism 291Surface Reading 29421 Post- Freudian Perspectives 299Trauma Theory 299Affect Theory 304Cognitive Literary Studies 312Evolutionary Literary Theory 31522 Developments in Gender Studies 322Queer Theory 322Transgender Studies 32823 World Literature and Globalization 336World Literature: Definitions and Developments 336The Phenomenon of Globalization 337World Literature in the Context of Globalization 34024 Posthumanism 346Donna Haraway 349Rosi Braidotti 35125 The Digital Era 354Digital Literary Studies 354New Media Studies 361A Note on AI 368Epilogue: Post-Theory? 372Index 381