The Twentieth-Century Humanist Critics revisits the work and place of eight scholars roughly contemporary with Anglo-American New Criticism: Leo Spitzer, Ernst Robert Curtius, Erich Auerbach, Albert Béguin, Jean Rousset, C.S. Lewis, F.O. Matthiessen, and Northrop Frye. William Calin first considers the achievements of each critic, examining his methodology and basic presuppositions as well as the critiques marshalled against him. Calin explores their relation to history, to canon-formation, and to our current theoretical debates. He then goes on to show how all eight form a current in the history of criticism related to both humanism and modernism.Underscoring the international, cosmopolitian aspects of literary scholarship in the twentieth century, The Twentieth-Century Humanist Critics brings together humanist critical traditions from Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America and reveals the surprising extent to which, in various languages and academic systems, critics were posing similar questions and offering a gamut of similar responses.
William Calin is a graduate research professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Florida.
AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPART ONE Leo Spitzer; or, How to Read a Text The Continuity of Western Literature: Ernst Robert Curtius The Evolution of Western Literature: Erich Auerbach Albert Beguin and the Origins of Literary Modernism Academic Criticism at Its Best: Jean Rousset C.S. Lewis and the Discarded Image of the Middle Ages and Renaissance The Search for an American Usable Past: F.O. Matthiessen Northrop Frye's Totalizing Vision: The Order of WordsPART TWO DiscussionNotesBibliographyIndex
'The Twentieth-Century Humanist Critics is a very engaging work, full of insights on critics that are due for a re-reading. Eminently readable, William Calin's book is timely and original in its treatment of the relationship between humanism and contemporary literary studies.' - Francesco G. Loriggio (College of Humanities, Carleton University)
