Companion to Literary Evaluation

The first critical survey of its kind devoted solely to literary evaluation

Companion to Literary Evaluation bridges the gap between the non-academic literary world, where evaluation is deeply ingrained, and the world of academia, where evaluation is rarely considered. Encouraging readers to formulate and articulate arguments that balance instinctive judgment and reasoned assessment, this unique volume addresses key issues regarding literary values from the perspective of analytical aesthetics and the philosophy of literature.

Bringing together a diverse panel of contributors, the Companion explores competing theories of literary evaluation, the reasons for evaluating theater and lyric poetry in performance, the question of value in literary theory, debates over Modernism's negative impact on literature, the possibility of evaluating aesthetic beauty through scientific and formalist methods, the nature and status of literary evaluation as a branch of criticism, aesthetics in applied and community theater, evaluation outside academia, the perils of extreme relativism and subjectivism in literary evaluation, evaluation in schools and much more. Contributors question and reassess the reputations of authors across the canon, from Shakespeare and James Shirley to T S Eliot, Kathleen Raine, Virginia Woolf, Joyce and Beckett amongst others. The Companion:

• Illustrates how seemingly divergent perspectives on the artistic qualities and value of literature can sometimes overlap
• Covers the standard range of literary genres, while including others such as unfinished novels, freelance journalism, and lyric poetry in performance
• Offers methodologies that demonstrate why literature can be treated as something different from other forms of language and therefore assessed as art
• Explores the importance of maintaining clarity and specificity in the evaluation of literary works

Companion to Literary Evaluation is a must-read for undergraduates, research students, lecturers, and academics in search of fresh perspectives on standard literary critical issues.

RICHARD BRADFORD is Research Professor at Ulster University, UK, and Visiting Professor at the University of Avignon, France. His 40 books cover topics as varied as stylistics, Russian Formalism, crime writing, the history of English poetry, modern fiction, and literary aesthetics. His recent works include literary biographies such as Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith and Tough Guy: The Life of Norman Mailer.

MADELENA GONZALEZ is Chair of Anglophone Literature at the University of Avignon, France, where she heads the Master's program in English Studies and the multidisciplinary research group "Cultural Identity, Texts and Theatricality" (ICTT). She has published widely on contemporary Anglophone literature, theater, and culture. She is co-editor of Aesthetics and Ideology in Contemporary Literature and Drama.

KEVIN DE ORNELLAS is Lecturer in English Renaissance Literature at Ulster University, UK. He served as Associate Editor for the two-volume Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature and authored The Horse in Early Modern English Culture: Bridled, Curbed, and Tamed. He has published 20 peer-reviewed essays, dozens of book and play reviews, and hundreds of encyclopedia articles.