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Considering the great popularity of the first seven editions of the book, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, and keeping in mind the valuable suggestions received from several quarters, the present eighth edition has been revised and enlarged by adding four new chapters. It now contains 64 chapters in all, organized into three parts.

Part I of the book lays emphasis on various schools of criticism that are prevalent in India and the West. Each chapter contains an analysis of the theory in question and shows the trend and development as well as the methodology of literary criticism in the twentieth century.

Part II contains discussions on a large number of critical essays and covers critics such as Eliot, Richards, Leavis, Barthes, Derrida, Foucault and the Postcolonial critics. The seminal critical essays included in this section have influenced the critical trends in the twentieth century and changed the general perception of criticism. These chapters, apart from giving a comprehensive idea of the critical concepts, also provide an analytical study of the critical works.

Part III contains fourteen chapters that explain the meanings of terms like textuality, intertextuality, hypertextuality; study the application of cultural studies to literary texts; capture the important changes that have taken place in cultural studies in the present age of globalization and give a brief historical perspective of literary theory, Culture Studies, Eco-Criticism, Interdisciplinarity, Political Correctness and Critical Fallacy.

The four new chapters are on "Globalectics: A Semblance of Criticism"; "Shakespeare Criticism in the Twentieth Century and Beyond"; "Post-coloniality to Globalectics: The Ways of Postcolonial Studies"; and "Demarcating the Frontiers of Literary Criticism and Contemporary Thought".

The theories and the texts have been explained with clarity and precision in a simple language and lucid style. This is an invaluable reference book for anyone interested in the field of literary criticism in the twentieth century and beyond.