Part one: The preparation of a critic -- Boyhood and Clifton -- Cambridge -- Moral science and Cambridge humanism -- G E Moore: "The other theory of art" -- Beauty and truth -- Part two: The theory and method of criticism -- Agenda in the 1920''s -- Semantics -- Science, poetry and society -- The Sherrington model -- The poet in idea perfection -- How a poem works, I: the parts -- How a poem works, II: reference and metaphor -- How a poem works, III: the whole -- The pathology of interpretation -- Belief and sincerity -- Coleridge and the whole soul in activity -- Part three: the later career: education and poetry -- Basic English: the years in China -- Experiment in America -- The classical tradition -- Influence: Empson; Leavis and Scrutiny; American new criticism -- Poems and plays: the third career -- Mysterious mountains -- Beyond -- Final years: a portrait of I A Richards.
