Prodigal Critics

In his Chronicle Review essay, "Prodigal Critics," Jeffrey Williams provides a very nice little history of shifts in criticism in the last century--specifically the rise of New Critics like John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, and Cleanth Brooks [who, I have to confess, are secret favorites of mine, lining the shelves here at home] who in turn gave birth to their own critics, like Harold Bloom, Stanley Fish, and Stephen Greenblatt. Williams' brief is that "theory" in the US was more home-grown than a foreign (i.e., French) import. Worth reading--there's an education crammed into this little essay.