Future for Criticism

Catherine Belsey is a research professor in English at Swansea University, UK. Her principal publications include Shakespeare in Theory and Practice (2008), Why Shakespeare? (2007), Critical Practice (1980, 2002), Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction (2002) and Desire: Love Stories in Western Culture (1994).

"The unbuttoned directness of this little book is invigorating." - Jean E. Howard (Shakespeare Studies, 2013)"A Future for Criticism issues a challenge to critics that really amounts to having the courage of our convictions and sticking to what we're good at, resisting the encroachments of history and psychology, and having 'confidence in the independent capabilities of criticism' (76) ... Belsey's book is a positive pleasure to read." (Transnational Literature, November 2011)"Laudably eschewing jargon, she draws up a very readable manifesto for change in critical practice which would require critics to be more reflective about the pleasure of reading fiction and attending plays . . . nevertheless, the front she has chosen on which to examine a new direction for literary and/or cultural criticism is timely and compelling, and her argument made with verve and originality." (Suite101.com, 4 April 2011)

• Preface xi1 Pleasure: Have we neglected it? 1Fiction for pleasure 1The case of tragedy 3The English curriculum 6Cries of joy 7‘Aesthetic’ pleasure 9The Pleasure of the Text 12Modernist unpleasure 14Gaiety 152 Piety: Haven’t we overdone it? 18Criticism on the defensive 18Classic defences 22The advent of theory 24Law 28The superego 29Neurosis 30Complacency 31Culture and Anarchy 32Artefacts and pleasure 33Critical writing 343 Biography: Friend or foe? 37Life and art 37Biography in theory 39What the authors say 42New Historicism 43Shakespeare’s life 44Fact or fiction? 46Shakespeare’s memory 47Romance 51The death of the reader 524 Realism: Do we overrate it? 54A disputed value 54The default genre 55Imitation 57Insight 60Totalization 62Suspicion 63Objections 64The radical view 66Recuperation 68A counter-example 705 Culture: What do we mean by it? 72Cultural criticism 72Twin perils 75Culture as meanings 76Meanwhile, in Paris … 80Anthropology 80Another culture 83Perils circumvented 85Work to do 886 History: Do we do it justice? 90Official usage 90Cultural difference 91History and criticism 93Customary knowledge 94Dissonance 97An example 99The old historicism 101Criticism as cultural history 103The uses of criticism 103Critical skills 1057 Desire: A force to reckon with 107Pleasure revisited 107Orpheus 108Loss 109The desire of the protagonist 111Stand-ins 113The desire of the reader 114The desire of the text 116Substitution 118Pacification 119Defiance 120Breaking the rules 123And so … 126Criticism 126Notes 128Index 140