Wayne C. Booth, "The Rhetoric of Fiction (2nd Edition)"
Wayne C. Booth, "The Rhetoric of Fiction (2nd Edition)"
University Of Chicago Press | 2nd Edition | 1983 | ISBN: 0226065588 | 572 pages | siPDF | 10.3 MB
University Of Chicago Press | 2nd Edition | 1983 | ISBN: 0226065588 | 572 pages | siPDF | 10.3 MB
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 EditionTags: Literature, LiteraryCriticism, WritingTechnique
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
Jane Austen, "Emma" (Norton Critical Editions), 3rd Edition
Josephine Ross, "Jane Austen: A Companion"
Janet Todd (ed), "Jane Au...he Works of Jane Austen)"
Deirdre Le Faye, "Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels"
Michael Dobson & Stanley W...Companion To Shakespeare"
Tom McArthur, "The Oxford Companion to the English Language"
John Rignall (ed), "Oxfor...ompanion to George Eliot"
R. C. Terry, "Oxford Reader's Companion to Trollope"
Julia Prewitt Brown, "A R...th-Century English Novel"
Ian Gregor (ed), "Reading...Novel: Detail into Form"
John Sutherland & Deirdre ...zbook (World's Classics)"
Daniel Pool, "What Jane A...neteenth-Century England"