Literary criticism Summary

In the following essay, Brown offers an overview of the emergence of the various schools of nineteenth-century American literary criticism, most of which were based on the aesthetics of Romanticism an... Read more

In the following excerpt, originally published in 1977, Parrinder briefly discusses the critical theories associated with Emerson, Whitman, and Poe. The Birth of American Criticism: Emerson, Whitman... Read more

In the following excerpt, Hopkins explains Emerson's aesthetic theory as it applies to literature. Form in Literature In his lecture series on The Philosophy of History (1836-37), Emerson pr... Read more

In the following excerpt, Reilly discusses the flaws of Lowell's critical essays, claiming that they were too impressionistic and subjective to meet a strict definition of scholarly criticism. ... Read more

In the following excerpt, Foerster discusses Poe's critical writing, which Foerster claims was devoted to resisting provincialism of two types: excessive respect for the literature of Europe, a... Read more

In the following excerpt, Abrams provides an overview of Romantic aesthetic theory, explaining how it differs from earlier criticism. ‘Didn't I tell you so?’ said Flask; ȁ... Read more

In the following essay, Eliot discusses Shelley's views of poetry, which were expressed within the poetry itself, and Keats's critical views, which were expressed in his correspondence. ... Read more

In the following excerpt, originally published in a different form in 1977, Parrinder compares areas of agreement and points of contention between the writings of Shelley, Hazlitt, and Keats, and the ... Read more

In the following essay, Cantor summarizes current critiques of Romanticism and the aesthetic theories associated with it, maintaining that such attacks are misguided and biased. And the poets lie t... Read more

In the following excerpt, Wellek discusses the critical perspectives of Schelling, Novalis, Wackenroder, and Tieck. Schelling Kant is usually considered the fountainhead of German aesthetics, but o... Read more

In the following excerpt, Wimsatt and Brooks provide an historical account of Wordsworth and Coleridge's critique of the poetic diction of earlier writers. At a later point in this narrative... Read more

In the following excerpt, Corrigan discusses Coleridge's use of theological discourse in the interpretation of literature. This I believe by my own dear experience,—that the more tran... Read more

Over the past two weeks I have learnt that new criticism comes in a diversity of forms, the ones I have looked at being, feminist, post colonial, structural and post structural criticism - each varyin... Read more