In this way the book reinstates Johnson's 'presence' as critic while displacing the 'history of ideas' as the leading paradigm for conceptualizing the history of criticism.

Affirming the unfailing currency and utility of the term criticism as new languages have taken over the critical domain, or have sought to replace or abolish literature, Smallwood distinguishes between the normative definitions that are ...

A compelling case for the importance of the heart and emotions over that of critical theory in Johnson's literary criticism.

Critical Occasions examines the relations between selected critical texts of Dryden, Pope, and Johnson, and the theoretical problems that arise in writing the history of the critical past.

Three sets of essays open perspectives on the business of long-eighteenth-century studies: on the role of publishers, printers, and bibliophiles in manufacturing cultural legacies; on authors whose standing has been made or eclipsed by the ...