Literature on Trial

S.D. Chrostowska is an assistant professor of European Studies in the Department of Humanities at York University.

Analysing works by Lessing, Goethe, and Karamzin, among others, Literature on Trial brings a fresh theoretical perspective to the links between genre as a discursive strategy and socio-political life.

'A brilliant and long awaited contribution to comparative literature in the spirit of the best achievements of Rene Wellek. Chrostowska diligently combines a detailed historical approach to German, Russian, and Polish literatures with a clear theoretical take on criticism as a genre. Her book makes us more aware of the transnational origins of Modernity and the genealogy of modern metaliterary discourses. It is comparative criticism at its best.' -- Michal Pawel Markowski, Hejna Family Chair in Polish Language and Literature, University of Illinois at Chicago 'This multifaceted study accomplishes several things at once: it is, at its basis, the first account of how the new genre of literary criticism travels eastward from England and France into Germany, Poland and Russia. It also makes telling use of genre theory to describe the discursive spaces created for criticism within the literary systems of these respective cultures. Above all, however, the author skillfully retells the stories that the criticism of this period of the "short" 18th century - a period seldom remembered for its brilliance - were designed to tell about literature. And Chrostowska shapes this all into her own compelling story of these 100 years of criticism.' -- Thomas O. Beebee, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and German, The Pennsylvania State University

INTRODUCTION *Genre, Discourse, History *Criticism and the Genus Universum*Criteria in Focus: Forms and Transformations*Looking Ahead PART I. GERMAN CRITICISM *Coming-of-Age *Overcoming Dogma: Periodicals and Review Criticism *Toward a Critical 'Play Drive': Generic Vicissitudes *Textual Analyses* J. Ch. Gottsched* J. G. Hamann* G. E. Lessing* J. G. von Herder* G. A. Burger* J. W. von Goethe* F. Schlegel PART II. CRITICISM IN POLAND *A Discursive Inheritance *Profiling Polish Criticism *Textual Analyses* J. A. Jablonowski * A. K. Czartoryski * J. Szymanowski * F. N. Golanski * F. K. Dmochowski *Excursus PART III. CRITICISM IN RUSSIA *The Emperor's Tongue: Russian Literary Language*Criticism's "Generic Unconscious" *Parody and Polemics*Textual Analyses* M. V. Lomonosov* A. P. Sumarokov* V. K. Trediakovskii* N. M. Karamzin CONCLUSION Generic Migrants Time Travelers Looking Back NOTES WORKS CITED INDEX