- René Wellek
René Wellek (
August 22 ,1903 —November 10 ,1995 ) was a Czech-American comparativeliterary critic . Wellek, along withErich Auerbach , is remembered as an eminent product of the Central European philological tradition.Wellek was born and raised in
Vienna , speaking Czech and German. He studied literature at theCharles University in Prague, and was active among the Prague School linguists there, before moving to teach in theSchool of Slavonic and East European Studies in 1935, now part ofUniversity College, London .During
World War II , Wellek relocated to America, first to theUniversity of Iowa and then toYale University . In the United States, he became a friend and advocate of the New Critics. With the criticAustin Warren , Wellek wrote the landmark volume "Theory of Literature", one of the first works which systematizedliterary theory , rather than approaching criticism in a more ad-hoc fashion. Beginning in the 1960s, Wellek defended the New Critics against the condemnation of their work in the name of a structuralist-influenced literary theory. For this reason, he is sometimes thought of today as a conservative literary scholar. Wellek's final work was a lengthy, multiple-volume history of literary criticism.External links
* [http://www.the-rathouse.com/ReneWellek.html Wellek biography]
* [http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/wellek/ Wellek bibliography]
* [http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/wellek/special.html Birth and death dates]
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