In this devastatingly funny classic, Frederick Crews skewers the ego-inflated pretensions of the schools and practitioners of literary criticism popular in the 1960s, including Freudians, Aristotelians, and New Critics. Modeled on the "casebooks" often used in freshman English classes at the time, The Pooh Perplex contains twelve essays written in different critical voices, complete with ridiculous footnotes, tongue-in-cheek "questions and study projects," and hilarious biographical notes on the contributors. This edition contains a new preface by the author that compares literary theory then and now and identifies some of the real-life critics who were spoofed in certain chapters.

Praise for Postmodern Pooh
"Postmodern Pooh is a brilliant exercise in criticism through burlesque. It is often deliciously funny, and there is no need to be deterred by the fact that most of the figures Crews targets are unknown outside academia; you won't have much trouble getting the point."

"Some professors of very little brain happen to be very good at riddles, and Crews is good at skewering them."