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3 - The Critical Essay

from Part I - Forms of the Essay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2022

By
Ferguson Frances
Edited by
Kara Wittman  and
Evan Kindley
Kara Wittman
Affiliation:
Pomona College, California
Evan Kindley
Affiliation:
Pomona College, California
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Summary

The critical essay emerged in the eighteenth century in writing that described natural and artistic objects, and in the process inspired readers to think about the nature of their experience. This chapter traces the critical essay’s evolution from Joseph Addison’s Pleasures of the Imagination through the work of nineteenth-century essayists like Thomas De Quincey and William Hazlitt, culminating in the academic literary criticism of New Critics such as I. A. Richards and Cleanth Brooks and more recent practitioners such as D. A. Miller and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.

Keywords

Critical EssayLiterary CriticismAcademic CriticismLiterary TheoryJoseph AddisonHugh BlairWilliam HazlittThomas DeQuinceyI. A. RichardsCleanth BrooksNew Critics
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to The Essay , pp. 49 - 63
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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