Includes bibliographical references and index

Introduction: secular criticism -- The world, the text, and the critic -- Swift's Tory anarchy -- Swift as intellectual -- Conrad: the presentation of narrative -- On repetition -- On originality -- Roads taken and not taken in contemporary criticism -- Reflections on American "Left" literary criticism -- Criticism between culture and system -- Traveling theory -- Raymond Schwab and the romance of ideas -- Islam, philology, and French culture: Renan and Massignon -- Conclusion: religious criticism

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