Addressing Frank Kermode: Essays in Criticism and Interpretation

Sir Frank Kermode's work has been and remains seminal for students of English literature; he has been described as ‘easily the most intelligent critic now writing'. In the first group of these essays leading scholars from the fields of literary criticism and philosophy critically address Kermode's texts, raising questions about his representation of literary study as hermeneutic activity and his recourse to the religious analogy, together with his account of the relations between texts and what is ‘hors-texte' (history and nature); questions to which Kermode himself responds. A second group, in which distinguished scholars develop their own interpretive strategies in the light of Kermode's work, further illustrates the fertility and reverberations of his thinking.

Philippa Berry is a Fellow and Director of Studies in English at King's College, Cambridge.
Margaret Tudeau-Clayton teaches English at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.