Cambridge Critical Concepts addresses key critical concepts animating twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary studies. Each concept in this series has had a profound impact on literary studies, as well as on other disciplines, and already has a substantial critical bibliography surrounding it. This new series captures the dynamic critical energies transmitted across twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary landscapes: the concepts critics bring to reading, interpretation and criticism. By addressing the origins, development and application of key critical concepts, these books collate and clarify how these particular concepts have developed, while also featuring fresh critical insights and establishing new lines of inquiry. Cambridge Critical Concepts shifts the focus from period or genre-based literary studies of a key term to the history and development of the terms themselves. Broad and detailed, contributions cumulatively identify and investigate the various historical and cultural catalysts that made the critical concepts emerge as established twenty-first-century landmarks in the discipline. The level will be suitable for advanced undergraduates, graduates and specialists, as well as to those teaching outside their own research areas.