The organization of the book is broadly chronological. Starting with a comprehensive section on classical literary criticism, it shows how the central philosophical principles of Plato and Aristotle not only underlie their specific comments on literature, but also lay out the foundations and categories of much subsequent Western thought. Similarly, for each subsequent period, the book combines back ground information, whether on the philosophy of Locke, the history of the French Revolution, the political theories of Marx and Engels, or Freud's views on civilization withy coverage of the major figures and texts of literary-critical thought.