J onathan Kramnick’s book Criticism and Truth is more modest than its title suggests. Essentially an apologia for the nuts-and-bolts work of literary studies, it is best described not as “ambitious” — ...

“C riticism” is a curiously protean word. In academic discourse, as in ordinary speech, it can refer simply to the act of appraisal, sometimes with a censorious edge. It’s used to describe reviews, ...

In 1966, Roland Barthes published a short book—a pamphlet, really—called Criticism and Truth, in response to Raymond Picard, a distinguished professor and the biographer of the French classical ...