Crisis and criticism, and selected literary essays / by Alick West ; foreword by Arnold Kettle ; introduction by Elisabeth West.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-284).

Crisis and criticism / 1. 'We' and 'I' -- 2. Romantic criticism -- 3. T.S. Eliot - 'The Waste Land' -- 4. T.S. Eliot as critic -- 5. Herbert Read - surrealism -- 6. I.A. Richards -- 7. A sacrifice of intellect -- 8. Marx and romanticism -- 9. Continuation of romanticism -- 10. Language and rhythm -- 11. Idiom -- 12. Form -- 13. Form and content -- 14. The relativity of literary value -- 15. James Joyce - Ulysses --

Literary Essays / John Bunyan -- Daniel Defoe -- Walter Pater -- Jonathan Swift -- D.H. Lawrence.

"Alick West, Marxist and literary critic, died in 1972. This volume contains much of his most significant work of literary criticism, including the famous 'Crisis and Criticism', published in 1935 and long unobtainable, and two essays written shortly before his death and not published in England, on Jonathan Swift and D.H. Lawrence. There has long been active and growing up a distinctive British tradition of Marxist criticism. Of this whole group of writers Professor Arnold Kettle comments in his foreword to this volume: 'They are notably individual workers, yet they have certain characteristics in common. Their work is imbued with a sense of closeness to the millions of working people. There is in their writing a strong consciousness of the progressive aspects of the English literary heritage. But perhaps most significant of all is a certain suspicion of the kind of ideological criticism found in the work of continental Marxists trained in the Hegelian tradition.' Alick West was perhaps the most distinguished of this group of British Marxist critics and , his work spanning the whole period from the 'thirties to the beginning of the 'seventies, the most significant and rewarding of all." -- from the book jacket

From the library of Karl and Elizabeth Niebyl.