This study, first published in 1982, explores and demonstrates the ways in which an awareness of literary genre can illuminate works as diverse as Milton s Lycidas and Berryman s "Sonnets." The first book to offer a historical survey of genre theory, it traces the history from the Greek rhetoricians to such contemporary figures as Frye and Todorov. Particular emphasis is placed on the ways in which comments on genre reflect underlying aesthetic attitudes.

Professor Leech considers the significance of the term ‘Tragedy’ as it has been used from classical times to the present day. He gives examples of tragic writing from a wide variety of dramatic literatures and relates theoretical writings on tragedy and the tragedies that have been contemporaneous with them. Free reference is made to critics from Aristotle to these of the present. Special stress is laid on the tragedies of the Greeks, of Renaissance writers and of our immediate contemporaries, notably Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. There is also discussion of tragic writing in the modern novel.

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First published in 1970, this work provides an overview of the Romance from the medieval period to the 20th century and tracks how the genre has changed with time, including its interaction with other forms of literature such as gothic novels, realism and science fiction. It explores a myriad of writers including Chaucer, Sidney, Tennyson, Shelley, Meredith and Keats and analyses key texts such as Don Quixote by Cervantes and Kubla Khan by Coleridge. This book will be of interest to those studying Romantic literature.

First published in 1969, this book provides a concise and helpful introduction to the terms ‘fancy’ and ‘imagination’. Although they are generally associated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the work begins with a discussion the history of these concepts which were also known to Aristotle, the Elizabethans, Hobbes, Locke and Blake. It then goes on to examine Coleridge’s theory of imagination and the distinction he drew between fancy and imagination. This work will be of particular interest to those studying Coleridge and the Romantic Movement.

First published in 1971, this work examines the tradition of the epic and the many forms in which it has presented itself over time. After unpicking the defining aspects of an epic, the book tracks the literary tradition from the classical period through to modern day. Exploring major texts such as Beowulf, Odyssey, Divina Comedia, The Faerie Queene and Ulysses, this work will be a valuable resource for those studying the epic and English literature.

First published in 1977, this book studies the picaresque as a literary genre. It begins by discriminating between the literature of roguery and the picaresque in particular before discussing the origins of the genre in Spain and tracing its development into Europe. The book concludes with a brief description of 'contemporary' works which belong to the same tradition. In tracing the itinerary of the picaro in Europe and in America, it attempts to define a 'myth' of the picaresque which consists of two phases: the first being the traditional Spanish model of the picaresque and the second comprising of an 'anti-picaresque' myth, in which the 'hero' or 'anti-hero' no longer remains alienated but instead is the figure in which the 'new' society is formed.