"Why do we spend time reading and discussing books which tell of events which never in fact occurred?" The question is elementary - and yet, as David Daiches suggests in this provocative study, it is the elementary questions that are never answered. Although literary criticism today is more concerned with technique than with the basic question of value, the question of value underlies all the others. Professor Daiches therefore directs this book to the search for the basic function and purpose of imaginative prose and poetry. A Study of Literature is not, however, an obscure book of literary theory; it contains abundant and pungent examples and critical analyses - of prose fiction, of modern writing, and of the nature of poetry. "It's main purpose," as Professor Daiches says, "is to help the reader of works of imaginative literature to see what he is reading, to understand just what it is that he gets from different kinds of reading, and to discriminate between those different kinds."

Aims to provide data for a consideration of that vital question: the place of literature in human activity & the extent to which the nature & function of literature are determined by the social conditions under which the writer lives.

'In the later twentieth century Robert Burns was sorely in need of commentators to provide fuller analysis of a figure whose cultural reputation too often overshadowed his literary achievement. The brilliance of David Daiches as a literary critic filled much of the gap. His readings are a cornerstone of modern Burns studies.' Gerry Carruthers, Director, Centre for Robert Burns Studies, University of Glasgow An Edinburgh graduate in the 1930s, the early part of David Daiches' long and distinguished academic career was spent in the United States. However, after spells at Chicago and Cornell Universities, in 1951 he returned to Cambridge as a Lecturer in English. Ten years later he chose to leave Cambridge for the new University of Sussex where he was the first Professor and Dean in the School of English Studies. Retiring in 1977, he returned to Edinburgh where he continued to play an exceptionally active role in Scotland's intellectual and cultural life until his death in 2005. A polymath of English letters, Daiches' scholarly interests ranged extremely widely, but in no field is his influence more creative and enduring than in that of Scottish Literature. Our understanding of Scotland's literary culture in the eighteenth century, of Burns, of Scott, of Stevenson and McDiarmid, was transformed by his work. Originally published in 1951, his Robert Burns is a brilliant example of his ground-breaking scholarship and criticism at its most illuminating.

Excerpt from New Literary Values: Studies in Modern Literature This is not to say that no criticism is good which does not take the form of philosophical investiga tion, but that such investigation must precede any further discussion. Criticism must assume a stable standard of values and constant points of reference, and the discovery of these must be made by each critic for himself. Otherwise there cannot even be an intelligent handling of vocabulary. What can the critic do with such words as aesthetic, form, ideal, significant, unless he has satisfied himself about their meaning by his own investigations? How often do we see quite un defined terms flung about loosely in critical writing which passes for profound! Definition of terms is no simple matter it is not the beginning of a thought-process but the end. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.