death_date death_place birth_place nationality name birth_date article_title birth_name occupation
11 november 1995 hamden , connecticut vienna , austria-hungary czech-american rené wellek 22 august 1903 rené wellek
 rené wellek literary critic
rené wellek

rené wellek -lrb- august 22 , 1903 -- november 11 , 1995 -rrb- was a czech-american comparative literary critic .
like erich auerbach , wellek was an eminent product of the central european philological tradition and was known as a vastly erudite and `` fair-minded critic of critics . ''
rené wellek was born and raised in vienna , speaking czech and german .
he studied literature at the charles university in prague , and was active among the prague school linguists there , before moving to teach at london 's school of slavonic and east european studies in 1935 ; the school is now part of ucl .
his younger brother albert wellek -lrb- 1904-1972 -rrb- was one of the founders of musical psychology and lived in germany .
before 1939 , wellek published some 60 items , all written in czech .
from 1939 , the beginning of world war ii in europe , wellek lived in america .
he taught first at the university of iowa for seven years until 1946 , and then , beginning in that year , at yale university , where he established and chaired a department of comparative literature .
in the united states , he was `` widely regarded as a founder of the study of comparative literature . ''
with austin warren , wellek published a landmark volume entitled `` theory of literature '' , one of the first works to systematize literary theory .
beginning in the 1960s , wellek defended the new critics against the condemnation of their work in the name of a structuralist-influenced literary theory , and is thus sometimes classed as a conservative critic .
in actuality , wellek advocated a synthesized approach to literary criticism , one that included 1 -rrb- literary theory , 2 -rrb- a careful study of previous works of criticism , and 3 -rrb- a thorough understanding of the surrounding history involved in an author 's creation of a work including the author 's personal history and the societal millieu out of which a work is created .
any approach that elevated one of these three pillars above the other as being more important or relevant for use in criticizing a given work would itself be in error .
instead , wellek asserted that the best literary critic must `` do what every scientist and scholar does : to isolate his object , in our case , the literary work of art , to contemplate it intently , to analyze , to interpret , and finally to evaluate it by criteria derived from , verified by , buttressed by , as wide a knowledge , as close an observation , as keen a sensibility , as honest a judgment as we can command . ''
only by bringing all of literary theory , criticism , and history to bear upon the evaluation of a literary work of art can a critic hope to achieve a `` victory over impermanence , relativity , and history . ''
the crowning work of wellek 's career was an eight-volume `` magnum opus '' entitled `` a history of modern criticism : 1750-1950 '' , the last two volumes of which he dictated from his bed in a nursing home at age 90 .
