The essays themselves are a spectrum of contemporary, criticism, ranging from classroom memoirs to analytic essay-in-criticism to assessment of the state of academic letters today. These contributions, a tribute, by reason of their very range, are a salute to the breadth of William Pritchard's circle of literary acquaintance. Under Criticism demonstrates the fine persistence in certain manners of approach and habits of focus that go, among that circle, lander the name of criticism.

Drawing foremost on their engagement with the literature before them, Christopher Ricks, Helen Vendler, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Neil Hertz, David Ferry, Paul Alpers, Joseph Epstein, and Frank Lentricchia -- as well as fifteen other critics and men and women of letters -- reinforce Professor Pritchard's prescription that in order to have a hearing, the critic needs to keep listening.