Synopsis This volume of twenty-two essays is prepared to honour Professor Prafulla C Kar on the occasion of his retirement from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda after about four decades of an illustrious career in the profession. The essays appear in five clusters: the first two essays lay the foundation for reflections on the correspondence between the past and the present and its implications for the future of literary studies; the next four spatially localize the questions raised, addressing issues such as the practice of criticism in India, its ethical dimensions in the evolving intellectual life in the country, and its impact on the changing canon; the third cluster of four essays focuses on Romantic theory, especially on the poetry of Wordsworth and Keats, an area of Kar’s pedagogical interest; the fourth and fifth groups similarly address Kar’s two other research interest areas, postcolonial studies and cultural studies. The volume closes with five essays focusing on individual authors; and the final essay points to the changing perspective on European cultural history, providing literary scholars a fresh way of examining culture and society in relation to their close imbrications with literature and the values that literature embodies.