In Defense of Reason

Blurb

In Defense of Reason is a collection of three volumes of literary criticisms by the American poet and literary critic Yvor Winters. First published in 1947, the book is fairly well known in literary circles, both British and American, particularly for its meticulous study of metrical verse and Winters' system of ethical criticism. Scholars and writers still mention or cite the book somewhat often in scholarly monographs to the present. It remains in print through the Ohio University Press.
The collection consists of three books of critical essays that Winters had written earlier. The first, Primitivism and Decadence: A Study of American Experimental Poetry, is Winters' revised doctoral dissertation on the classification and analysis of poetic structures. The second, Maule's Curse: Seven Studies in the History of American Obscurantism, is a study of seven prominent American novelists and poets of the 19th century. The third, The Anatomy of Nonsense, is a study of several prominent writers associated with modernism.