Wayne C. Booth, "The Rhetoric of Fiction (2nd Edition)"

The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and terms—such as "the implied author," "the postulated reader," and "the unreliable narrator"—have become part of the standard critical lexicon.

For this new edition, Wayne C. Booth has written an extensive Afterword in which he clarifies misunderstandings, corrects what he now views as errors, and sets forth his own recent thinking about the rhetoric of fiction. The other new feature is a Supplementary Bibliography, prepared by James Phelan in consultation with the author, which lists the important critical works of the past twenty years—two decades that Booth describes as "the richest in the history of the subject."

Contents

Foreword to the Second Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Acknowledgments

Part I: Artistic Purity and the Rhetoric of Fiction
 1 Telling and Showing
  Authoritative "Telling" in Early Narration
  Two Stories from the Decameron
  The Author's Many Voices
 2 General Rules, I: "True Novels Must Be Realistic"
  From Justified Revolt to Crippling Dogma
  From Differentiated Kinds to Universal Qualities
  General Criteria in Earlier Periods
  Three Sources of General Criteria: The Work, the Author, the Reader
  Intensity of Realistic Illusion
  The Novel as Unmediated Reality
  On Discriminating among Realisms
  The Ordering of Intensities
 3 General Rules, II: "All Authors Should Be Objective"
  Neutrality and the Author's "Second Self"
  Impartiality and "Unfair" Emphasis
  Impassibilité
  Subjectivism Encouraged by Impersonal Techniques
 4 General Rules, III: "True Art Ignores the Audience"
  "True Artists Write Only for Themselves"
  Theories of Pure Art
  The "Impurity" of Great Literature
  Is a Pure Fiction Theoretically Desirable?
 5 General Rules, IV: Emotions, Beliefs, and the Reader's Objectivity
  "Tears and Laughter Are, Aesthetically, Frauds"
  Types of Literary Interest (and Distance)
  Combinations and Conflicts of Interests
  The Role of Belief
  Belief Illustrated: "The Old Wives' Tale"
 6 Types of Narration
  Person
  Dramatized and Undramatized Narrators
  Observers and Narrator-Agents
  Scene and Summary
  Commentary
  Self-Conscious Narrators
  Variations of Distance
  Variations in Support or Correction
  Privilege
  Inside Views

Part II: The Author's Voice in Fiction
 7 The Uses of Reliable Commentary
  Providing the Facts, Picture, or Summary
  Molding Beliefs
  Relating Particulars to the Established Norms
  Heightening the Significance of Events
  Generalizing the Significance of the Whole Work
  Manipulating Mood
  Commenting Directly on the Work Itself
 8 Telling as Showing: Dramatized Narrators, Reliable and Unreliable
  Reliable Narrators as Dramatized Spokesmen for the Implied Author
  "Fielding" in Tom Jones
  Imitators of Fielding
  Tristram Shandy and the Problem of Formal Coherence
  Three Formal Traditions: Comic Novel, Collection, and Satire
  The Unity of Tristram Shandy
  Shandean Commentary, Good and Bad
 9 Control of Distance in Jane Austen's Emma
  Sympathy and Judgment in Emma
  Sympathy through Control of Inside Views
  Control of Judgment
  The Reliable Narrator and the Norms of Emma
  Explicit Judgments on Emma Woodhouse
  The Implied Author as Friend and Guide

Part III: Impersonal Narration
 10 The Uses of Authorial Silence
  "Exit Author" Once Again
  Control of Sympathy
  Control of Clarity and Confusion
  "Secret Communion" between Author and Reader
 11 The Price of Impersonal Narration, I: Confusion of Distance
  "The Turn of the Screw" as Puzzle
  Troubles with Irony in Earlier Literature
  The Problem of Distance in "A Portrait of the Artist"
 12 The Price of Impersonal Narration, II: Henry James and the Unreliable Narrator
  The Development from Flawed Reflector into Subject
  The Two Liars in "The Liar"
  "The Purloining of the Aspern Papers" or "The Evocation of Venice"?
  "Deep Readers of the World, Beware!"
 13 The Morality of Impersonal Narration
  Morality and Technique
  The Seductive Point of View: Céline as Example
  The Author's Moral Judgment Obscured
  The Morality of Elitism

Afterword to the Second Edition: The Rhetoric in Fiction and Fiction as Rhetoric: Twenty-One Years Later
 Extensions
 Beckett's Company As Example
 Starting Over

Bibliography
Supplementary Bibliography, 1961–82, by James Phelan [no. 364]
Index to the First Edition
Index to the Bibliographies
Index to the Bibliographies by Number
 Bibliography
 Supplementary Bibliography, 1961–82

Tags: Literature, LiteraryCriticism, WritingTechnique

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