CRITICISM & SOCIETY RAJNATH

This collection of essays highlights, directly or indirectly, the social concern of criticism. Each essay is independent yet related to the other essays in the volume. For example, the very first essay foregrounds the question of morality, identifying religion and literature as its main sources. The question of morality is, however, present in all the other essays. The intellectual is defined in terms of the honesty of thought and literary criticism is correlated to culture, which is premised on morality. The collision of cultures in the two critical movements rests on the question of morality. The two major poems discussed by the canonical modern poet T.S. Eliot place morality at the centre of the life they depict. The colonial encounter was essentially a cultural encounter that cannot be dissociated from morality. F.R. Leavis is known for raising the question of morality, and so is T.S. Eliot. The interface of ‘criticism’ and ‘society’ is the crux of the book. Each essay will be found exceedingly useful and enlightening by readers, whether they are students, teachers, scholars, or critics.