Methods of studying literature are defined and described. A section on definitions and distinctions investigates literature and literary study; the nature and function of literature; literary theory, criticism, and history; and general, comparative, and national literature. The ordering and establishing of evidence is described. The bulk of the…

Extremists, whether formalists of the New Criticism or of the humanist-moralist tradition, are taken to task in this attempt to combine elements of both in a more pluralistic approach to literary criticism. An analysis of a Frost poem, "Stopping by Woods", is attempted as an illustration of a kind of criticism that seeks to clarify the parts of…

Evaluates President Nixon's speech of November 3, 1969 in literary terms-as an example of the genre known as the quest story. (AN)

Three writers debate whether English teachers should depend on external or internal criteria when analyzing and teaching literature. Each writer discusses the meaning of Elinor Wylie's poem, "The Eagle and the Mole," according to his particular view of literary analysis. Edward Ducharme, in "The Evasion of the Text," submits…

Barthes'"S/Z: An Essay" offers ways of approaching critical problems not well dealt with in Anglo-American criticism.

Special issue dedicated to the works of Pio Baroja. (DS)

In criticism, as in real life, we should take into account what the dramatic speaker is doing in the act of uttering a piece of discourse. (JH)

Described in this article is a critical procedure in the study of literature defined by the author as a method of responsive interrogation of the text. The approach is guided by a study of relevant political, sociological, literary, and intellectual circumstances. Three fundamental questions are central to the discussion of the theory: (1) What…