The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts & Contemporary Trends

If it came down to one, this might as well be The One. There are equals but nothing superior to this voluminous collection in one volume.

I am a new English PhD student struggling to learn the history of critical theory and simultaneously find my place within it. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It offers extremely helpful overviews of various critical movements (and how they fit together/comment on one another, which is hard to find in most critical overviews) along with seminal primary texts. However, you don't have to be a beginner to appreciate this text -- its really great for everyone.

This is certainly one of the best comprehensive anthologies of Literary criticism from Plato to postmodernism available. The only other such anthology that is worthy of comparison is the NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF THEORY AND CRITICISM (2001). Which one you prefer will be largely a matter of personal taste. They are both equally massive in size. THE CRITICAL TRADITION leaves out Augustine, Moses Maimonides, Aquinas, Giraldi, Mazzoni, and Lessing, which the NORTON includes; so I would say the NORTON's coverage of the Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance is more comprehensive. THE CRITICAL TRADITION includes, however, Shklovky's great essay on "defamiliarization," as well as an essay by Brecht, glaring omissions of the NORTON. Both anthologies omit Rene Girard, one of the most important theorists of the 20th century. THE CRITICAL TRADITION includes Clifford Geertz's great essay on "Thick Description," lacking in the Norton. THE NORTON's coverage of African-American criticism is better though. But THE CRITICAL TRADITION includes an essay by Rey Chow, one of the major players in Post-Colonial criticism. Overall, the NORTON has more authors, but whether they are better authors will depend on personal preference. A notable feature of THE CRITICAL TRADITION is the inclusion of several "dialogues" between different authors, such as Frank Lentricchia's critique of Stephen Greenblatt's New Historicism. THE NORTON includes substantial introductions to individual authors; THE CRITICAL TRADITION gives substantial introductions to the older authors, but for the modern period, they take a different approach. For each major theoretical movement (such as Reader-response or Feminism), there is a substantial (10-15 pages) essay by the editor on the movement and its leading figures; but the introductions for individual authors are omitted, except for a brief list of books published. Annoyingly, the table of contents is hard to find, coming only after a 15 page preface. What were the editors thinking? Both THE NORTON and THE CRITICAL TRADITION are excellent anthologies with slightly different strengths and weaknesses. They both cover many of the same authors, but for modern theorists, the editors have often chosen different selections. Graduate students and Professors of English might well want to have both.

Time and again, I've watched students--whether grads or undergrads--stress and strain in an attempt to get their heads around the thoughts of people like Derrida, Foucault, Kristeva, Spivak, etc. I've come to the conclusion that this confusion stems from the average university's habit of throwing new critical thinkers in at the contemporary deep-end of critical thinking. Richter's book is absolutely indispensable, as it is one of the few anthologies willing to acknowledge the existence of and include well-chosen examples from the long history of critical thought and how it helps us understand what we read, why we read, and what we value.You could buy the Adams/Searle two-volume deal, split into critical theory before and after 1965, but you'll notice right away that the date they've arbitrarily chosen as their critical divide doesn't hold water. In order to introduce the post-1965 thinkers, Searle and Adams are forced to include a bevy of far earlier thinkers, from Heidegger to Lukacs to Wittgenstein. You're safer to stick with Richter, who lets the interconnectedness of these thinkers speak for itself.The greatest strength of Richter's tome is that it simply starts at the beginning (which is, as Julie Andrews reminds us, a "very good place to start") and moves forward (until about the mid-19th century, when things get trickier), charting a course through what is aptly termed "the critical tradition." This movement provides an astonishingly broad context in which one can more usefully engage more contemporary thinkers. Present-day debates over representation, for example, and the dangers thereof, weigh a great deal more when one is familiar with the long history that underpins this debate, from Aristotle to Horace ("just representations of general nature") to Sidney, etc.An unexpected bonus to this focus on thinkers other than those 20th-century bastions of critical theory, is a broader understanding of intellectual currents in other periods. Romanticism? You've got Kant, Shelley, Keats and Coleridge explaining it to you. The Enlightenment? You've got Johnson, Hume and Pope. The more context one has, the more one understands, in my experience.I've harped on the critical tradition in Richter, but he has chosen the contemporary essays well, too. They're selected and organized in such a way as to give a sense of a debate taking shape. This not only helps the readings speak to each other more directly, but it also forces the reader to keep in mind that the critical tradition is never a finished product. Its construction continues, and by the end of a semester spent in Richter's anthology, we become a part of this development, feel its workings around and beyond us.I highly recommend this volume.

Most literary criticism anthologies force you to pick between historical and contemporary selections. Richter has done an excellent job of providing an all-in-one anthology that gives ample selections from Plato through the twentieth century.The contemporary selections are grouped by ideological schools (Formalism, Reader Response, New Historicism, etc.) with an introduction to that school that is both scholarly and readable. In fact one of the strengths of the book overall is Richter's introductions which provide ample guidance for the new student without being overly reductive. Another plus is the large number of essays in the historical section that are reproduced in their entirety rather than in the form of selected passages. This trait makes the book admittedly large and regrettably expensive, but in the long run you will save money by not having to buy another anthology to fill in the gaps.The only real omissions that I have found regrettable thus far has been the absence of medieval and early Christian thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas.

A big book, this contains canonical and avant garde writings on the purpose of literature, the reading of literature, and the teaching of literature. This is a text professors and students of English will reach for throughout their careers. Richter also offers his insight (and editorializes) on the methodology and validity of other critics' work. Knowing where a critic is coming from helps immensely in placing the critic's statements in their proper perspective. Again, a hefty text, but a text carefully covering a huge territory.