No subject can be more bewildering to the advanced learner of English than 'Literary Appreciation'. Even when the student is writing in his mother-tongue and reading literature by authors whose work may be familiar to him, appreciation is often a difficult task. When the student is faced with literature in a foreign language the problem becomes all the more acute. He is in command of a relatively limited vocabulary and yet is required to comment intelligently on works which may tax his powers of comprehension to the utmost. Furthermore, a certain vagueness surrounds the whole subject: the student frequently does not know what to say about a piece of writing he has read. He may succeed in enjoying and understanding a poem or a prose-passage, but the necessity to explain why he has enjoyed it is usually far beyond his powers. 

This book may be found to supply the answer to precisely this sort of problem since it sets out to provide the student with a clear, well-defined method for appreciating poetry and prose. If the student is trained along the lines suggested in this book he should be better equipped to get the most out of what he reads and should have little difficulty in writing in an interesting way about pieces he has enjoyed.