"T.S. Eliot, I.A. Richards, William Empson, F.R. Leavis, Raymond Williams - together they formed a new generation of literary critics, of iconclastic originality, who made us newly attend to the words on the page. But today, the innovations of these critical revolutionaries are in danger of being forgotten. Terry Eagleton here shows the deep effect they had on the way we think, read and write."--back cover