Literary Criticism: A New History

A THE Book of the Week. Did you know that Aristotle thought the best tragedies were those which ended happily? Or that the first mention of the motor car in literature may have been in 1791 in James Boswell's Life of Johnson? Or that it was not unknown in the nineteenth century for book reviews to be 30,000 words long?These are just a few of the fascinating facts to be found in this absorbing history of literary criticism. From the Ancient Greek period to the present day, we learn about critics' lives, the times in which they lived and how the same problems of interpretation and valuation persist through the ages. In this lively and engaging book, Gary Day questions whether the 'theory wars' of recent years have lost sight of the actual literature, and makes surprising connections between criticism and a range of subjects, including the rise of money.General readers will appreciate this informative, intriguing and often provocative