This 1981 volume addresses literary theory and criticism, comparative studies in terms of theme, genre movement and influence, and interdisciplinary perspectives.

List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Editor's note: rhetoric, 'orientalism', and comparative method; Part I. Rhetoric and History: 1. The discourse of history Roland Barthes, translated with an introduction by Stephen Bann; 2. The historian as taxidermist: Ranke, Barante, Waterton Stephen Bann; 3. Literature and ideology J. P. Stern, translated by Sheila Stern; 4. Langland's ymaginatif and late-medieval theories of imagination Alastair J. Minnis; 5. Rhetorical and anti-rhetorical tropes: on writing the history of elocutio Brian Vickers; 6. The epic of ideas: Lucan's De bello civili and Paradise Lost Charles Martindale; 7. Foundations of oriental and comparative studies: the correspondence of Sir William Jones Garland Cannon; 8. Letters of Sir William Jones and his correspondents: letters to Richard Johnson, Sir John Macpherson, Thomas Maurice, the Starcks, and from Whang Atong, James Burnett, Eliphalet Pearson, and Sir George Yonge; Part II. Translations: 9. 'Pentecost' and other poems Alessandro Manzoni, translated by Kenelm Foster; 10. Manzoni's poetry and the witnessing of events Michael Caesar; 11. Allegories of trivialization: Strindberg's view of history Göran Printz-Påhlson; 12. The mysticism of world history August Strindberg, translated by Michael Robinson; Part III. Essay Reviews: 13. The rhetoric of history and the history of rhetoric: on Hayden White's tropes Arnaldo Momigliano; 14. New rhetorics for old Peter France; 15. Translating for humanists: Erasmus and Rabelais Terrence Cave; 16. Halliday's linguistic model for criticism Roger Fowler; 17. On Hugh MacDiarmid's Complete Poems 1920-1976 Edwin Morgan; Books received; Bibliography of rhetoric studies, 1970-80; Bibliography of comparative literature in Britain, 1978.