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The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece

(Paperback)


Publishing Details

Full Title:

The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece

Contributors:

By (Author) Andrew Ford

ISBN:

9780691120256

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

Imprint:

Princeton University Press

Publication Date:

19th October 2004

Country:

United States

Classifications

Readership:

Professional and Scholarly

Fiction/Non-fiction:

Non Fiction

Dewey:

801.950938

Prizes:

Short-listed for Choice Magazine Outstanding Reference/Academic Book Award 2003

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Paperback

Number of Pages:

376

Dimensions:

Width 152mm, Height 235mm

Weight:

567g

Description

By "literary criticism" we usually mean a self-conscious act involving the technical and aesthetic appraisal, by individuals, of autonomous works of art. Aristotle and Plato come to mind. The word "social" does not. Yet, as this book shows, it should--if, that is, we wish to understand where literary criticism as we think of it today came from. Andrew Ford offers a new understanding of the development of criticism, demonstrating that its roots stretch back long before the sophists to public commentary on the performance of songs and poems in the preliterary era of ancient Greece. He pinpoints when and how, later in the Greek tradition than is usually assumed, poetry was studied as a discipline with its own principles and methods. The Origins of Criticism complements the usual, history-of-ideas approach to the topic precisely by treating criticism as a social as well as a theoretical activity. With unprecedented and penetrating detail, Ford considers varying scholarly interpretations of the key texts discussed. Examining Greek discussions of poetry from the late sixth century B.C. through the rise of poetics in the late fourth, he asks when we first can recognize anything like the modern notions of literature as imaginative writing and of literary criticism as a special knowledge of such writing. Serving as a monumental preface to Aristotle's Poetics, this book allows readers to discern the emergence, within the manifold activities that might be called criticism, of the historically specific discourse on poetry that has shaped subsequent Western approaches to literature.

Reviews

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003 "Andrew Ford has written lively and sophisticated account of the evolution of criticism as an autonomous activity, and illuminated the origins of the modern-day equivalent of those antique experts in literature--the professional academic... [W]hat distinguishes Ford's work from previous studies is the breadth of his scholarship, the detail of his analysis, and above all his historicist approach."--Penelope Murray, Times Literary Supplement "Andrew Ford has taken on the enormous task of tracing the historical background of critical language and the establishment of criticism as a distinct discilpine. He has executed this task with precision, poignancy, and insightful erudition... [T]his eloquent book will be an instant complement to any study of the history of criticism."--Eustratios Papaioannou, Bryn Mawr Classical Review "Ford collects in this volume much useful information about classica literary criticism from Homer to Aristotle... [An] important volume."--Choice

Author Bio

Andrew Ford is Professor of Classics at Princeton University. He is the author of "Homer: The Poetry of the Past" and of numerous articles on Greek literature and literary history.

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