Criticism: Major Statements

This enduring anthology is the only one to encompass the historic sweep of literary criticism — from Plato to the present — in a compact and affordable format.

This enduring anthology is the only one to encompass the historic sweep of literary criticism — from Plato to the present — in a compact and affordable format.

Booknews

A collection of classic and modern whole essays and substantial excerpts arranged chronologically to suggest the scope and development of criticism and critical dialogues. Perspectives represented include Lacanian psychoanalysis, postcolonialism, gay studies, and hypertextuality. Headnotes introduce each selection, but this information does not dictate how students should read the selections or suggest how they should be taught. Selections are lightly footnoted. This edition offers 17 new selections. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

CHARLES KAPLAN (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is professor emeritus at California State University, Northridge, where he was the founding chairman of the English department in 1956. He has been a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, France, and has served on the original board of the California Council for the Humanities. Among his publications are Guided Composition, Critical Approaches to the Short Story, The Overwrought Urn, and Literature in America: The Modern Age. Since his retirement, Kaplan has been a reader for Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.

WILLIAM DAVIS ANDERSON (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is a professor of English at California State University, Northridge, where he has served as director of graduate studies, teacher preparation adviser, and chair of the department. His teaching, for which he has received a CSUN Distinguished Teaching Award, encompasses graduate courses in English Romanticism as well as undergraduate courses and graduate seminars in literary theory and criticism. He joined Charles Kaplan as coeditor for the third and fourth editions of Criticism: Major Statements. Of his other critical writings, Professor Anderson's favorite is his "Time and Memory in Nabokov's Lolita," published in The Centennial Review.