The collection of texts contained in this volume was made with the criterion of highlighting, as representative as possible, the most important figures and problematic issues that marked what we would call post-Marxist aesthetics and literary theory in the twentieth century. A second criterion of selection was precisely the comparative character of most of the approaches, so as to allow the maximum scope for further critical reflection on the part of the reader.
The volume includes texts on Georg Lukács, Lucien Goldmann, Walter Benjamin, Mikhail Bakhtin, Bertolt Brecht, Deconstruction, and Cultural Theory.