he recognition that a literary text is embedded in a historical context that can be defined in cultural, political, and social terms has been common knowledge for sorne time. This insight, how­ever, has not been fully appreciated in the examination of vari­ous forms of literary criticism-scholarly books and articles, journalistic essays, book reviews in newspapers, and the like. Yet studies that deal with literary works in one way or another should also be recognized as literary texts and should be se en against their own background. Literary criticism, to borrow a definition from Ernst Robert Curtius, is that form of litera tu re which is concerned with literature. The task of this introduction, seen in these terms, is to define and unfold the literary, cultural, and political context of the seven essays collected in this volume. They were written between 1970 and 1977-years that mark striking changes in the history ofliterary criticism in Europe and the United States.