Literary theories, principles, criteria cannot be arrived at in vacuo: every critic in history has developed his theory in contact with concrete works of art which he had to select, interpret, analyze and after all judge. The literary opinions, rankings and judgments of a critic are buttressed, confirmed and developed by his theories, and theories are drawn from and supported, illustrated, made concrete and plausible by an inspection of works of art. The subject forms a totality from which we can not abstract single strands without serious damage to its understanding and meaning. Thirty or forty years ago the later nineteenth century would have inevitably appeared as the golden age of criticism. This was true especially in France; the reputation of Sainte Beuve and Jain stood high, higher than that of any other critics in the whole history of literature whose reputations were established almost entirely by criticism. This book however, presents the rudiments of literary criticism and is useful for the beginners who want to study literary criticism.
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