As Lentricchia's best-known work reaches its twentieth anniversary, its half-truths and caricatures seem more misleading than ever. For a long time this book together with Eagleton's Literary Theory served as basic introductions to undergraduates (and slow graduate students) into what was then current critical debate and the history leading up to it. How many must have been shocked to go on and later actually read the work of the critics Lentricchia caricatures only to find out how much richer and more nuanced their work was than Lentricchia had described it. And, alas, how many never went back to the originals because, so misled, they thought they now didn't need to. The disappointing intellectual life of late 90's criticism can in part be laid at the feet of Lentricchia and polemicists like him who reduced scholarly life and serious intellectual debate to comic book polemics.

I am currently reading After the New Criticism, and while casually surfing through Amazon, thought I'd check out what some others had said about it. I was very surprised to see a reviewer from Catania, Sicily give it one and star and an adverse review.

This is a rich, condensed, and lucidly written account of a vast topic: the 20 years in American literary criticism spanning the decline of new criticism and the advent of poststructuralism. Naturally a narrative which aims at traversing so vast a terrain will have limitations and will be unable to comprehensively address each specific theorist, school and philosophy it examines. Nevertheless, to condemn the book for being "inaccurate and ... misleading" goes too far. To my mind Lentricchia does an admirable job of concisely summing up the essential positions of the major players in controversies and battles of the 60s and 70s. Far from being dated, the book historically contextualizes many of the key theoretical ideas of these decades, thus allowing students of the current critical scene to trace genealogies of influence and reaction forward to the issues that engage us today.

This book is a good beginning point for learning about critical theory in literary studies. It is no substitute for reading the theorists themselves; however it provides a useful and comprehensible map for exploring regions notable for obscurity and intellectual difficulty.

This book represents an awesome performance of critical thinking. It traces literary discourse back to the thirties and forties, the period of the "New Criticism", which basically meant an abstracted reading of works from their original context. The new critics were in many cases formalists in that they look for internal coherence and unity rather than references to time and place. The book includes extented discussions of modern philosophies, including existentialism and phenomenology. A synopsis would show a move from myth criticism to existentialism to structuralism and concludes with deconstruction/post-structuralism,i.e. the advent of Derrida. Lentricchia is concerned throughout with showing the limitations of all these approaches and he claims that we need to find some sort of connection between life and literature. His touchstone is "History"--the way from thought to action. Alas, he hopes Foucault will show the way, but ultimately, as he admits later, he too succumbed to kind of formalism. Anyone who is curious about modern critical discourse will profit from a reading of this magnificant book

Certainly one of the most puerile, self-serving, and monotonous uses to which words have ever been put.

Go back to your lit crit day job, Mr. Lentricchia. There's no future for you in real writing!

The two compelling novellas that make up this volume trace how the past haunts us, tracks us, shapes us even when we think ourselves beyond it. Lentricchia's probing of his character's memories and personalities is ruthless and brutal, his prose exacting so that it can cut deeper. But despite being immersed in the violent fantasies of the protagonist of "The Knifemen" and the toxic remembrances of "Johnny Critelli," the high quality of these works ultimately makes reading this a cathartic experience. There are also quite a few funny passages that leaven the darkness. Ambitious, lyrical, and moving in its unflinching depiction of people haunted by the very things that keep them alive. Call it a demonology with a heart. Highest recommendation.

Also worth seeking out: Lentricchia's next book, "The Music of The Inferno," a savagely funny tour-de-force that re-imagines the historical novel as revenge fantasy, complete with an unforgettable dinner scene that turns "Babette's Feast" on its head.

This book is an anthology of essays describing some important aspects of literature and criticism. It's a really good idea, but badly done here. The book identifies itself as 'a landmark introduction to the work of literary theory' and claims to be suitable for 'the reader beginning to learn about critical theory.' A more accurate description might be, 'written by stuffy, self-important old people for same to enjoy.'

The editors seem to have taken great pains to select works written by people who feel a need to choose the longest word they can find to represent an idea; if a suitably long word does not exist, they combine a word with prefixes and suffixes until they are satisfied. There is no reason to write like this, especially if you're trying to teach someone something. The chapters of the book can be translated into speaking man's English to good effect, and every one of the 28 critical terms really is simple enough to explain without the comically frequent fallback on Latin phrases and words.

I don't know why so many people think this is a great book. Maybe because it's filled with words like 'prosopopoeia,' which is, I'll admit, a valid English word, but a little bit limited in its general use among readers beginning to learn about critical theory. The flow of the essays becomes stinted by the necessity of referring to a dictionary at every fourth word and then translating the resulting mess into a sentence that normal people understand.

In short, this is a bad textbook. The authors have hidden very simple concepts behind such a thick wall of confusing use of language and terminology that the reader becomes a gold miner, chipping away at the useless mountain of words before him to extract what little vein of content he can find.

This book offers a very interesting, concise look into many of the terms employed by contemporary literary/critical theory. I would suggest anyone read this book if they want a short introduction to some of the thoughts employed by contemporary critics when analyzing a piece of literature. It is not, however, sufficient as an introduction to that theory. I would suggest supplementing this text with several primary sources--people who want to speak intelligently about Foucault or Derrida or Lacan or Saussure should read their primary readings. If one decides not to, one comes out with the impression that these literary critics could give the last, or at least the most authoritative, word on their topic. This is, of course, not necessarily so. Use this book, it is an exemplary secondary source on literary theory, but supplement it with primary readings to get a more nuanced impression of contemporary thoughts about literature.

Many times I found myself arguing against the assertions made about literature and theory in this book. I think, perhaps, that sometimes particular "American" critics fail to capture the fullness of the arguments by French theorists. This is not to say that "American" theorists "do not get it"; however, it should make you weary about simply accepting the presentation of the topics in this book. The ideas presented by literary theory are inordinately complex, and sometimes it takes actually grappling with the confusing language of the French, or of the translated French (though this introduces yet another problem) to actually understand what critics actually say about literature.

By all means, buy this book for a concise rendering of the issues. However, do not think for a moment that this book accurately portrays contemporary literary study in its fullness. There is so much more than this book initially communicates.

The book provides a very useful guide to terms ranging from Lacanian desire to narrative. Each author discusses the history of the term and its current use and then goes on to use the term to inform their own critical reading of a specific text or texts, providing a very useful illustration of the term's implications.