Critics will always disagree, but, maintains Wayne Booth, their disagreement need not result in critical chaos. In Critical Understanding, Booth argues for a reasoned pluralism-a criticism more various and resourceful than can be caught in any one critic's net. He relates three noted pluralists-Ronald Crane, Kenneth Burke, and M. H. Abrams-to various currently popular critical approaches. Throughout, Booth tests the abstractions of metacriticism against...