An indispensable introduction to one of the great critics of the twentieth century, whose work on ideology, aesthetics and social criticism has ensured his place at the centre of cultural studies and contemporary theoretical debates.

Jonathan Hart is Associate Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta. He is Contributing Editor of the Canadian Review of Comparative Literature and author of Theater and the World: the Problematics of Shakespeare's History.

Preface 1 The theoretical imagination 2 Reconstructing Blake 3 Reconstructing criticism 4 The Great Code 5 History 6 On education 7 Mythology and ideology 8 A visionary criticism 9 The critic as writer 10 The power of words