Benedetto Croce

Essays on Literature and Literary Criticism

By M. E. Moss

Subjects: Literary Criticism
Paperback : 9780791402016, 244 pages, July 1990
Hardcover : 9780791402009, 244 pages, July 1990

Alternative formats available from:

Table of contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Benedetto Croce's Essays on Literatures and Literary Criticism

1. Homer: A Modern Interpretation of Some Classical Judgments
2. Terence

3. Lucretius and Virgil: I. The De Rerum Natura II.The Georgics
4. Virgil: Aeneas Facing Dido

5. The Character and Unity of Dante's Poetry

6. Dante: The Concluding Canto of the Commedia

7. Petrarca: I. "The Dream of Love that survives Passion" II. Canzone: "My Ancient Sweet Cruel Lord"

8. Ludovico Ariosto: The Realizations of Harmony

9. Shakespeare's Poetic Sentiment

10. Shakespeare's Art

11. Corneille's Ideal

12. In Goethe's Faust: Wagner the Pedant

13. Marcel Proust: A Case of Decadent Historicism

14. Poe's Essays on Poetry

15. Ibsen

16. An English Jesuit Poet: Gerard Manley Hopkins

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Description

The literary criticism of Benedetto Croce is considered by many to be the vital part of his thought. These essays, some of which appear for the first time in English, show the breadth and depth of Croce's work as literary critic and presuppose his mature theory of art. The writings are here arranged chronologically according to their subjects, helping to lend coherence to the great variety of subjects Croce treated. Unlike other renderings, these works are annotated and include translations of Latin, Renaissance Italian, and German passages. Also included is a clear and cogent introduction to Crocean aesthetics and an up-to-date bibliography.

M. E. Moss is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College. She is the author of Benedetto Croce Reconsidered: Truth and Error in Theories of Art, History, and Literature.

Reviews

"This book may help the return to rationality and the re-establishment of some common ground in the complexity and intricacy of an area currently dominated by individual whims. The Introduction offers a theoretical synthesis of some essential aspects of Croce's aesthetics." — Giovanni Gullace

"The universality of genuine art — in Croce's implicitly anti-historicist polemic — provides an interesting counter to contemporary American aesthetics, as does the notion of 'pseudoconcepts' in terms of modern genre criticism. This is both a solid and suggestive piece of work." — Gregory Lucente