• ISBN13: 9788171561599
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: English Literature
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd
• Publisher Imprint: Atlantic
• Publication Date: May 25, 1990
• Pages: 128
• Original Price: INR 120.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 100 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): Semiotics & Theory

In the mid-thirties, R.S. Crane, the pivotal critic of the Chicago School, launched a crusade to save the humanities from scientism as much as from partial and onesided view of literature being held by the then prevailing critical approaches. He pleaded for critical pluralism so that different approaches could be judiciously used to come out with a comprehensive idea of literature. In place of a priori road he preferred to take the a posteriori road like Aristotle so that through inductive method after threadbare discussion of multivalent entity called Literature he could relate it to other cultural activities. In this attempt he differed with the new critics of his time and distinguished himself as an important signature among the modern theorists of literature. Dr. (Mrs.) Tejinder Kaur has attempted in the present book a perceptive examination of the basic assumptions of R.S. Crane which have gone into the formulations he has made on literature as an aesthetic object and also on the theory of literature. Her treatment of the theoretical bases of Crane’s criticism is as dependable as her assessment of his achievements as a theorist in the world of today when all kinds of theories are being propounded to confuse the readers. The students of modern literature of literary theory will find the book really useful.

Dr. Tejinder Kaur has been teaching English to the M.A. and M.Phil. students in the Punjabi University, Patiala for the last five years. She has published several papers on literary Critics, modern British novelists, and Indian writers writing in English, in various critical anthologies. Her other publications include studies on Formalist Criticism, Generic Criticism, Principles of Literary Criticism, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, R.K. Narayan’s The Man-Eater of Malgudi, Lionel Trilling Northrop Frye and Terry Eagleton. She is actively engaged in research activities guiding research at M.Phil. and Ph.D. level.

• Introduction
• 1. Emergence of R.S. Crane
• 2. Need for a Theory
• 3. History and the History of Ideas
• 4. History vs. Criticism
• 5. Perspectives on Various Critical Theories
• 6. Pluralism and the Method of Aristotle
• 7. Conclusion
• References
• Bibliography