From Library Journal
This self-defensively "postmodern" guide provides 226 essay-length overviews of critics, schools, movements, and national and ethnic groups important to the study of literary theory and criticism. The descriptive entries, which include a primary and secondary bibliography and an abundance of cross references that facilitate exploration, are authoritative and well written. The entries in Hugh Holman's Handbook to Literature (Macmillan, 1992. 6th ed.) are both much shorter and more accessible, but individual critics are not included. Magill's Critical Survey of Poetry (Salem Pr., 1992. rev. ed.), on the other hand, gives critical analyses of poets but deals only briefly with terms and concepts. By covering terms and critics, this guide does the work of both sources, filling a niche for scholars and graduate students in literature and related fields.- Peter Dollard, Alma Coll. Lib., Mich.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
With coverage ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Richard Rorty and Edward Said, this work is an overview of major landmarks of criticism from classical antiquity to the present day. Included, in addition to literary critics, are theorists whose affiliation or discipline is not primarily literary studies: philosophers, political theorists, anthropologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. For example, an essay on Hegel appears between those on Hazlitt and Heidegger. The editors state that they shortened the entries on twentieth-century critics in an effort to entice the reader into making selective sorties into earlier entries, earlier in the historical sense. In addition to those figures who have affected literary theory and criticism, the work includes important groups, schools, and movements; major national or ethnic schools of criticism; and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods. The 226 entries are arranged alphabetically so that such entries as Caribbean Theory and Criticism, Chicago Critics, Chinese Theory and Criticism, and Chomsky, Noam appear in that order. Entries on Arabic, African, biblical, feminist, gay, Indian, psychoanalytic, and Russian criticism are joined by essays on film theory, cultural studies, hermeneutics, postmodernism, and stylistics.Each contribution is signed. The authors are literary scholars from leading universities throughout the U.S. and Canada with a few from institutions in other countries. Each entry is followed by at least one bibliography; most have two, a primary and a secondary one. Ample cross-references are noted within entries in small-capital letters. Related references appear at the end of each entry. Quotations are signaled by parenthetical page numbers that refer to works in the bibliographies. The appended material includes a list of contributors with academic affiliations, an index of names, and an index of topics.Histories and anthologies of literary theory and criticism abound, but there are few encyclopedic works that treat critics, schools, and movements in a reference format. This more scholarly work complements Gale's Contemporary Literary Critics, which gives biobibliographic information about modern critics but treats no schools or movements. Another recent work, the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms (Univ. of Toronto, 1993), also emphasizes contemporary themes. The Johns Hopkins Guide is an excellent overview with a wider time frame. Academic libraries with strong literature programs, especially graduate programs, will want to own it.


From Book News, Inc.
Almost ten years in the making, this international, encyclopedic guide brings the world of reference up-to-date with regard to the dominant intellectual preoccupation of the humanities and social sciences over the past generation. While concentrating on contemporary works, it provides a comprehensive historical survey of ideas and individuals ranging from Plato and Aristotle to 20th-century scholars, in some 200 alphabetical entries on critics and theorists, schools and movements, and innovations of specific countries and historical periods. It also examines developments in other disciplines which have shaped literary theory and criticism. Each entry, really a substantial, signed essay, provides an original overview of its subject and includes a selected primary and secondary bibliography. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.


Review
"An uncommonly absorbing reference book that attempts to map changes wrought by an anxious new worldliness and self-consciousness among scholars, which the term 'theory' connotes... For writers and critics, [this] is a must, but every committed reader will want to own it."-- San Francisco Chronicle


Review
"In the maze of writers and positions, past and present, that surround us in the field that we refer to as `theory' nowadays, this volume should indeed be an invaluable guide."--Murray Krieger, University of California, Irvine


Book Description
The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism has become the indispensable resource for scholars and students of literary theory and discourse. The long-awaited second edition includes 48 new entries and subentries and has been revised throughout, taking account of ten years of rapidly changing scholarship.While concentrating on the explosion of contemporary critical and theoretical works, the Guide presents a comprehensive historical survey of ideas and individuals ranging from Plato and Aristotle to twentieth-century scholars. It includes more than 240 alphabetically arranged entries on critics and theorists, critical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods. It also examines developments in other disciplines which have shaped literary theory and criticism. An international, encyclopedic guide to the field's most important figures, schools, and movements, the new edition reflects the state of literary theory and criticism.


About the Author
Michael Groden is a professor of English at the University of Western Ontario. Martin Kreiswirth is dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, professor of English, and founding director of the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at the University of Western Ontario.Imre Szeman is an associate professor of English at McMaster University.

FROM THE PUBLISHER