Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0155161482, Hardcover)

This new paperback edition is a reprint of a classic textbook by the late Walter Jackson Bate, noted literary scholar and two-time Pulitzer prize winner. It is a collection of important readings in literary criticism from Aristotle to the pre-theory part of the twentieth century. No other book currently available provides as worthwhile and comprehensible a selection of readings in literary criticism, including texts from classical humanism through the Renaissance, Neoclassical and Romantic traditions, and as far into contemporary literature as T.S Eliot, I.A. Richards and Edmund Wilson. This is an appropriate required or recommended text for courses in literary criticism at the graduate or undergraduate level. While aimed primarily at the college student, it is a valuable addition to the home library of the serious reader.