Literary criticism

Abstract

Literary critics today fall into two broad categories. There are the academics, out to impress their colleagues and instruct their pupils. And there are, in the great tradition of Dryden, creative writers meditating on their craft. In Greece scholars seem to have been called kritikoi before they took over the term grammatikos. With Quintilian the authors come to a professional rhetor, well qualified, as well as inclined, to assess Cicero as well as praise him. Quintilian knew how literary criticism of oratory should be conducted. It is a mark of his sophistication that only recently has scholars approached Cicero in this wide and unprejudiced way. Cicero brought to the theory of oratory a width that it had never known before and was rarely to know again. He thinks often of an ideal orator, who shall have all the qualities of Cicero himself and more besides.