Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism (Revised)

Critics will always disagree, but, maintains Wayne Booth, their disagreement need not result in critical chaos. In Critical Understanding, Booth argues for a reasoned pluralism--a criticism more various and resourceful than can be caught in any one critic's net. He relates three noted pluralists--Ronald Crane, Kenneth Burke, and M. H. Abrams--to various currently popular critical approaches. Throughout, Booth tests the abstractions of metacriticism against particular literary works, devoting a substantial portion of his discussion to works by W. H. Auden, Henry James, Oliver Goldsmith, and Anatole France.