My singleauthored books, which include what was african american literature. The two met at the university of iowa in the late 1930s, and by 1940 had begun writing the book. One coul d even sa thay it t is maybe this first an strong wideld y misunderstood, position which. Theory of literature by rene wellek and austin warren harcourt, brace and company, new york printed in the united states of america preface the naming of this book has been more than ordinarily diffi cult. Van tieghems definition of comparative literature in his theoretical book the. Even a proper short title, theory of literature and methodology of literary study, would be too cumbersome. The authors sought to unite poetics literary theory with criticism evaluation of literature with scholarship research and literary history the dynamics of literature in contrast with the statics of theory and criticism. By literary theory we refer not to the meaning of a work of literature but to the theories. Ill take my stand, contained essays by two new critics, ransom and warren.
Wellek and warren are very fair to a variety of approaches, stressing the importance of not. Compared to scientific language, literary language will appear in some ways. This had to be done in a book of reasonable size, without being eclectic or doctrinaire. Published june 18th 1964 by mariner books first published 1949. Theory of literature is a book on literary scholarship by rene wellek, of the structuralist prague school, and austin warren, a selfdescribed old new critic. Kenneth warren department of english language and literature. Its contents were based on their shared understandings of. Department of turkish language and literature, faculty of arts and science. Wellek and austins book is something of a strange read in 2017 the authors they quote are almost all male and the theory itself seems so outdated that it is cute. In this section the book also deals with literary theory, history and criticism and it. On comparative literature science publishing group. Brooks and warrens understanding poetry 1938 in which the authors are against substitutin the poe gm as th objece t o f study by the study of biographical and historica l materials4.
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