René Wellek has recently reiterated, in the introduction to the fifth and sixth volumes of A History of Modern Criticism: 1750-1950 (1955-), that "Critics must never be considered merely as 'cases.'" This prohibition might well have evolved as a reaction to his own treatment, for Wellek's work has often been reduced to an exemplary instance of New Criticism. Wellek has been placed at the theoretical forefront of American New Criticism, despite his own objections, primarily because of his 1949 Theory of Literature (written with Austin Warren), which articulated with tremendous success (three editions; twenty-two translations) fundamental principles associated with New Criticism. The most familiar of these principles is probably the superiority of "intrinsic" over "extrinsic" approaches to literary works--an idea that influenced dramatically the study of literature around the world. The most obvious feature of Wellek's argument for an intrinsic, or aesthetic, study of literature, rather than...