The World, the Text, and the Critic

A sweeping and intellectually rigorous work of literary criticism that moves the field forward, from one of the preeminent public scholars

“[Said’s] book is relaxed and discursive, original, immensely learned, fluently written.”―John Bayley, The New York Times Book Review

Edward W. Said, author of Beginnings and the controversial yet seminal Orientalism, is one of the most acclaimed public intellectuals of our time. In this sweeping and rigorous work of literary criticism, he pushes the field even further forward. Moving from Derrida to Foucault, from Marxism to structuralism to psychoanalysis, and from Swift to Conrad to Lukács to Renan, Said argues that critical systems and the dogmas of the dominant culture have crippled our engagement with literature, forcing a text to meet the requirements of theory while ignoring the tethers that bind it to the living world.

Provocatively, Said advocates for freedom of consciousness and responsiveness to history, to the exigencies of the text, to political, social, and human values, and to the heterogeneity of human experience. The World, the Text, and the Critic asks daring questions, investigates problems of urgent significance, and gives a subtle yet powerful new meaning to the enterprise of criticism in modern society.