Abstract

Food has recently emerged as a topic for serious literary study. This chapter traces important developments in the field of literary criticism on food, considering the texts, authors, genres, and themes that have been the focus of attention, and the theoretical trajectory of such criticism. Since most critics tend to specialize in a particular historical period, the approach is broadly chronological but also considers those critical works tracing the development in literature across the centuries of food-related philosophical and psychological phenomena such as eating disorders. The chapter also considers where the study of food might take us in the future.