Inventing the Critic in Renaissance England

"Inventing the Critic in Renaissance England is an important account of the first significant period of literary criticism in the English language, and any subsequent account of the origins of English criticism will need to take account of it. One bonus of this account of early English criticism is its familiarity with classical as well as Continental criticism. Recent generations of Renaissance scholars working in English have lost some of the contact with these important intertexts that were once taken for granted as keystones for the origins of English criticism. Russell’s book helps to redress this lacuna of scholarship without, however, getting lost in erudition. That is, he does not simply return to the history of ideas. He is interested in the intersection between the history of ideas and the scene of critical judgment in all of its messiness and conflict."

~Kevin Pask, Concordia University, author of The Emergence of the English Author: Scripting the Life of the Poet in Early Modern England