ABSTRACT
In its most comprehensive sense historical criticism plays a part in our reading of all past works of literature, and it contributes to other kinds of criticism even when their practitioners arc unsympathetic to its aims and unaware of the extent to which what they regard as common knowledge is ultimately derived from it. In considering the strategies available to historical criticism, however, it seems advisable to consider also ways in which other kinds of criticism may be a help or a hindrance to it. Redefinition of what historical criticism requires at present leads in turn to some unexpected alliances, and it seems likely that critics working remote from one another and for different ends have contrived strategies that arc incidentally complementary because they were trying to modify or remove the same obstacle from a different point of view. Those who begin digging tunnels on opposite sides of the same mountain arc unlikely to meet unless they do so by prior arrangement, but if by chance they find themselves close to one another though headed in different directions a connecting detour will be of mutual advantage.
