The Rhetoric of FictionThe 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
Authoritative Telling in Early Narration | 3 |
True Novels Must Be Realistic | 23 |
All Authors Should Be Objective | 67 |
Emotions Beliefs and the Read | 119 |
Types of Narration | 149 |
THE AUTHORS VOICE IN FICTION | 167 |
Commenting Directly on the Work Itself | 205 |
Dramatized Narrators Reliable | 211 |
Confusion | 311 |
33 | 330 |
Henry James | 339 |
The Morality of Impersonal Narration | 377 |
40 | 383 |
50 | 395 |
The Rhetoric in Fiction | 401 |
53 | 411 |
16 | 226 |
The Unity of Tristram Shandy | 229 |
mmax | 236 |
9 | 243 |
23 | 249 |
The Uses of Authorial Silence | 271 |
29 | 303 |
60 | 452 |
Bibliography | 459 |
67 | 463 |
Supplementary Bibliography 196182 by James Phelan | 495 |
| 521 | |
Index to the Bibliographies | 543 |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic ambiguity artist Aspern Papers audience author and reader beliefs chap chapter character comic commentary complete conventional critics discussion distance distinction dramatic E. M. Forster effect Emma Emma's emotional Essays example experience F. O. Matthiessen fact feel Flaubert Frank Churchill George Eliot heighten Henry James hero imagine impersonal implied author important inside views intellectual intended interest intrusions irony James Joyce James's Jane Austen Joseph Conrad Joyce Joyce's judgment kind Knightley literary literature London look matter means mind modern fiction moral narrative narrator's never norms novel novelist object omniscient person pleasure plot poetry portrait precisely problem question R. P. Blackmur realistic reality reflector reliable narrator rhetoric of fiction satire scene seems sense Stephen story sympathy tale talk technique tell thing tion Tom Jones trans Tristram Shandy true truth unreliable narrators values write York