George A. Kennedy (1) (1928–)

I'm trying to sharpen up on literary theory, and have consequently set out on the fairly quixotic quest of trying to read all of The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. This first volume in the series is concerned with classical criticism, and covers the ancient world from responses to Homer up to early Christian exegesis of the Bible. It is very well written and scholarly, as one would expect from Cambridge University Press. It also isn't nearly as dry as one might expect, though I guess this depends on one's own tastes. The only part that I found hard-going was really the first chapter, 'Early Greek views of poets and poetry', perhaps because I was really out of my depth. (I have read Homer, but the theoretical approach to the movement from oral to written poetry was a bit abstruse for me.) Other than that, I found the volume to be both useful and fascinating. G.R.F. Ferrari's discussion of Plato's antagonistic stance towards poetry was particularly interesting.… (altro)