This set of 37 volumes is a revival of the original Critical Idiom series. First published between 1969 and 1979, the volumes in this series provide concise and accessible introductions to a range of critical terms which are key to the study of literature. This set will be a valuable resource for students working with complex literary terminology.
By John D. Jump
January 17, 2019
First published in 1972, this book provides a helpful introduction to burlesque literature, a term used by critics from the seventh-century onwards to describe work in which an incongruity between serious subject-matter and style is used to provoke laughter. It examines the four main types of ...
By Dominique Secretan
January 17, 2019
First published in 1972, this book provides an overview of Classicism in literature. After an informative introduction to the term, it explores some of the periods and places in which Classicism has been prominent: the Italian Renaissance, England before and during the Restoration, Renaissance ...
By David L. Hirst
January 17, 2019
First published in 1979, this book traces comedy of manners from the 1660s to the then present — a scope beyond the traditional focus on the Restoration and early twentieth century. It uncovers an underestimated subversive potential and socially critical force in this particularly English dramatic ...
By C. W. E. Bigsby
January 17, 2019
First published in 1972, the work provides an introduction to Dada and Surrealism. It explores the two movements and their cultural significance. It also looks at those who called themselves Dadaists and Surrealists, including their aims and achievements. In doing so, the book identifies the ...
By S. W. Dawson
January 17, 2019
First published in 1970, this book explores drama as literature and provides critical overviews of different aspects of drama and the dramatic. It first asks what a play is, before going on to examine dramatic language, action and tension, dramatic irony, characters and drama’s relationship with ...
By R. L. Brett
January 17, 2019
First published in 1969, this book provides a concise and helpful introduction to the terms ‘fancy’ and ‘imagination’. Although they are generally associated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the work begins with a discussion the history of these concepts which were also known to Aristotle, the ...
By D. C. Muecke
January 17, 2019
First published in 1970 and revised in 1982, this work provides a critical overview of the concept of irony in literary criticism. After establishing the relationship of the ironical and the non-ironical, it summarises the history of the concept of irony, before isolating and discussing its basic ...
By Lilian R. Furst, Peter N. Skrine
January 17, 2019
First published in 1971, this book examines the literary style of Naturalism. After introducing the reader to the term itself, including its history and its relationship to Realism, it goes on to trace the origins of the Naturalist movement as well as particular groups which adhered to Naturalism ...
By Michael Bell
January 17, 2019
First published in 1972, this books examines the subject of primitivism through the study of the work of a number of major writers, including D. H. Lawrence, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot and James Joyce. It looks at the variety of definitions and uses of primitivism and how the idea ...
By Arnold Hinchliffe
January 17, 2019
First published in 1969, provides a helpful introduction to the study of Absurdist writing and drama in the first half of the twentieth century. After discussing a variety of definitions of the Absurd, it goes on to examine a number of key figures in the movement such as Esslin, Sartre, Camus, ...
By Alan Bold
January 17, 2019
First published in 1979, this work presents the history of the ballad, including its origin, style, content and preservation. It explores how ballads have adapted and changed over time, particularly with the rise of mass literacy and printing and the decline in the oral tradition, and in doing so, ...
By John D. Jump
January 17, 2019
First published in 1974, this book provides a helpful overview to the ode. After introducing the reader to classical odes, it goes on to trace the development of two major types: the Pindaric ode and the Horatian ode. The book concludes with a study of odes from the nineteenth and ...