The Pooh Perplex - by Frederick Crews (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this devastatingly funny classic, Frederick Crews skewers the ego-inflated pretensions of the schools and practitioners of literary criticism popular in the 1960s, including Freudians, Aristotelians, and New Critics. Modeled on the "casebooks" often used in freshman English classes at the time, The Pooh Perplex contains twelve essays written in different critical voices, complete with ridiculous footnotes, tongue-in-cheek "questions and study projects," and hilarious biographical notes on the contributors. This edition contains a new preface by the author that compares literary theory then and now and identifies some of the real-life critics who were spoofed in certain chapters.

From the Back Cover

In this devastatingly funny classic, Frederick Crews skewers the ego-inflated pretensions of the schools and practitioners of literary criticism popular in the 1960s, including Freudians, Aristotelians, and New Critics. Modeled on the "casebooks" often used in freshman English classes at the time, The Pooh Perplex contains twelve essays written in different critical voices, complete with ridiculous footnotes, tongue-in-cheek "questions and study projects," and hilarious biographical notes on the contributors. This edition contains a new preface by the author that compares literary theory then and now and identifies some of the real-life critics who were spoofed in certain chapters.

Review Quotes

"A rather gentle lampoon of literary criticism."--Carole Cadwalladr "The Guardian" (8/7/2006 12:00:00 AM)

"In twelve glittering, brightly malicious essays [Crews] has pole-axed and then neatly eviscerated twelve varieties of currently fashionable literary criticism. . . . Anyone who values his franchise as a literary highbrow . . . will have to be able to quote The Pooh Perplex."--Orville Prescott "New York Times"

"That rare find--a genuine satire. It is devastating, diabolical, and delightful."-- "Hartford Times"

About the Author

Frederick Crews is a professor emeritus of English at the University of California at Berkeley. His many books include The Critics Bear It Away: American Fiction and the Academy, The Random House Handbook (currently in its sixth edition), and Postmodern Pooh.