M. A. R. HABIB is Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University and a leading scholar in literary criticism, philosophy, and translation. He is the author of Hegel and the Foundations of Literary Theory, Hegel and Empire: From Postcolonialism to Globalism, and Literary Studies: A Norton Guide. Habib has edited The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Volume VI and the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. His work also includes several translations of Urdu poetry and Islamic texts.

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Part I Classical Literary Criticism and Rhetoric 7

1 Classical Literary Criticism 9

Introduction to the Classical Period 9

Plato (428- ca. 347 BC) 10

Aristotle (384- 322 BC) 15

2 The Traditions of Rhetoric 23

Greek Rhetoric 23

Roman Rhetoric 27

The Subsequent History of Rhetoric: An Overview 30

The Legacy of Rhetoric 31

3 Greek and Latin Criticism During the Roman Empire 35

Horace (65- 8 BC) 35

Longinus (First Century AD) 37

Neo- Platonism 39

Part II The Medieval Era 47

4 The Early Middle Ages 49

Historical Background 49

Intellectual and Theological Currents 51

5 The Later Middle Ages 57

Historical Background 57

Intellectual Currents of the Later Middle Ages 58

The Traditions of Medieval Criticism 60

Transitions: Medieval Humanism 71

Part III The Early Modern Period to the Enlightenment 77

6 The Early Modern Period 79

Historical Background 79

Intellectual Background 80

Confronting the Classical Heritage 86

Defending the Vernacular 89

Poetics and the Defense of Poetry 91

Poetic Form and Rhetoric 94

7 Neoclassical Literary Criticism 98

French Neoclassicism 100

Neoclassicism in England 102

8 The Enlightenment 114

Historical and Intellectual Background 114

Enlightenment Literary Criticism: Language, Taste, and Imagination 119

9 The Aesthetics of Kant and Hegel 129

Immanuel Kant (1724- 1804) 129

Hegel (1770- 1831) 134

Part IV Romanticism and the Later Nineteenth Century 143

10 Romanticism 145

Germany 148

France 151

England 153

America 160

11 Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, and Aestheticism 168

Historical Background: The Later Nineteenth Century 168

Realism and Naturalism 169

Symbolism and Aestheticism 174

12 The Heterological Thinkers 181

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788- 1860) 181

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844- 1900) 182

Henri Bergson (1859- 1941) 185

Matthew Arnold (1822- 1888) 185

Part V The Twentieth Century: A Brief Introduction 189

Introduction 189

13 From Liberal Humanism to Formalism 193

The Background of Modernism 194

The Poetics of Modernism: W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot 196

Formalism 197

Russian Formalism 197

The New Criticism 202

14 Socially Conscious Criticism of the Earlier Twentieth Century 206

F. R. Leavis 206

Marxist and Left- Wing Criticism 207

The Fundamental Principles of Marxism 208

Marxist Literary Criticism: A Historical Overview 210

Early Feminist Criticism: Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf 212

15 Phenomenology, Existentialism, Structuralism 219

Phenomenology 220

Existentialism 220

Heterology 223

Structuralism 224

16 The Era of Poststructuralism (I): Later Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction 230

Later Marxist Criticism 231

Psychoanalysis 233

Deconstruction 240

17 The Era of Poststructuralism (II): Postmodernism, Modern Feminism, Gender Studies 247

Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929) 250

Jean Baudrillard (1929- 2007) 251

Jean- François Lyotard (1924- 1998) 252

bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins; b. 1952) 253

Modern Feminism 253

Gender Studies 258

18 The Later Twentieth Century: New Historicism, Reader-Response Theory, Postcolonial Criticism, Cultural Studies 264

The New Historicism 265

Reader- Response and Reception Theory 268

Postcolonial Criticism 270

Cultural Studies 276

Part VI The Twenty- First Century: A Brief Introduction 279

19 Criticism and the Public Sphere 283

A New Liberalism 283

The New Theorists of Revolution 284

Critical Race Feminism 287

20 The Aesthetic (Re)Turn 291

Introduction 291

The New Aestheticism 291

Surface Reading 294

21 Post- Freudian Perspectives 299

Trauma Theory 299

Affect Theory 304

Cognitive Literary Studies 312

Evolutionary Literary Theory 315

22 Developments in Gender Studies 322

Queer Theory 322

Transgender Studies 328

23 World Literature and Globalization 336

World Literature: Definitions and Developments 336

The Phenomenon of Globalization 337

World Literature in the Context of Globalization 340

24 Posthumanism 346

Donna Haraway 349

Rosi Braidotti 351

25 The Digital Era 354

Digital Literary Studies 354

New Media Studies 361

A Note on AI 368

Epilogue: Post-Theory? 372

Index 381