Literary texts are revived and reformulated by each generation of readers, who bring their own historical understanding to bear on the writing of the past. This reader grapples with attempts to understand the way in which the past is continually rewritten in the present. It provides a collection of manifestos, essays and excerpts which offer access to important intellectual contexts which have helped to shape the production and reception of 20th-century literature. The texts have been grouped according to theses, methodologies and historical movements, with a short, explicatory, introductory essay with each section. The sections thereafter are arranged conceptually, but broadly chronologically, so as to show the various intellectual shifts of the century which have affected the writing and criticism of literature.