Overview

The Philosophy of Modern Literary Theory presents a short introduction to the problems, theories and concepts of literary critisicm, from the Anglo-American New Criticism to Deconstruction and Postmodernism. The book argues that modern theories can only be properly understood when placed in the philosophical and aesthectic context in which they originated and evolved. The book ranges across not just the philosophical underpinnings of English literature but also the critical literaturesof Eastern Europe, France, Germany, Italy and North America. For the first time, the major schools of literary theory from Marxism to psychoanalysis to Critical Theory are set within their philosophical context. The theorists discussed include Adorno, Bakhtin, Barthes, Benjamin, Croce, Derrida, Eco, Fish, Gadamer, Goldmann, Greimas, Hegel, Heidegger, Jakobson, Jameson, Jauss, Kant, Lukacs, Lyotard, de Man, Mannheim, Marx and Nietzsche. Peter Zima is Professor of Comparative Literature and Director at the Institute of General and Comparative Literature at the University of Klagenfeld.