ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author deals with the relation between 'practical' and 'philosophical' criticism, although the term 'practical' criticism was not used in the eighteenth century—the common term being 'particular'. He distinguishes three eighteenth-century applications of the term 'criticism': process, product and by-product. Methodologically, the single poem identified what elements constituted the critic's problem. Thus for the poet, additions and revisions implied areas of new interest, dissatisfaction or amplification. Johnson recognized that a poet's text should be printed as the poet left it, because the act of respect is an act of freedom; it accepts man for what he has done and permits him to speak in his own voice. In the recovery of human voices, scholarship can represent a model of the scrupulous exercise of human energy. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
