1. Introduction 2. Descents from Decadence: 1890-1918 The Critical Agenda, Aesthetes and Academics, Modernism Nascent, Shakespeare the Omniscent, The Novel and Realism, Canons for Everyman, Men of Letters and Great Loins 3. The Modernist Revolution: 1918-1945: T.S Eliot and the Critical Agenda, 'Classical' and 'Romantic' Positions, Close Reading and the Rise of New Criticism, Shakespeare in Space, Theories of the Novel, Canons of Modernist Revaluation 4. Beyond the new Criticism: 1945-1968: The Critical Agenda, High-Tide of New Criticism, Alternatives to New Criticism, More Shakespearean Themes, The Rise of the Novel, Canons for Courses, The Babel of Interpretations 5. Literary Theory and Textual Politics: Since 1968: 'Theory' and the Critical Agenda, Textualities: Structuralism and Beyond, Contextualisms: New-Left and Feminist Critiques, Shakespearean Subversions, the Novel Re-opened, Canonicities in Question, Limits to Postcriticism. Chronology General Bibliographies Individual Authors Index.