TY - BOOK T1 - Rhetoric of Fiction Y1 - 1983 A1 - Booth, Wayne C. AB -

For this 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."

PB - University of Chicago Press CY - Chicago N1 -

Contents

Foreword to the Second Edition 
Preface to the First Edition 
Acknowledgments 
Part I: Artistic Purity and the Rhetoric of Fiction 
I. Telling and Showing 
Authoritative "Telling" in Early Narration 
Two Stories from the Decameron
The Author's Many Voices 
II. 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 Fiction 
The Novel as Unmediated Reality 
On Discriminating among Realisms 
The Ordering of Intensities 
III. 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 
IV. 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? 
V. 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 
VI. 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
VII. 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 Events 
Generalizing the Significance of the Whole Work 
Manipulating Mood 
Commenting Directly on the Work Itself 
VIII. 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 
IX. 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
X. The Uses of Authorial Silence 
"Exit Author" Once Again 
Control of Sympathy 
Control of Clarity and Confusion 
"Secret Communion" between Author and Reader 
XI. 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 
XII. 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!" 
XIII. The Morality of Impersonal Narration 
Morality and Technique 
The Seductive Point of View: Céliné 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 
Bibliography 
Supplementary Bibliography, 1961-82, by James Phelan 
Index to the First Edition 
Index to the Bibliographies 

ER - TY - BOOK T1 - The Rhetoric of Fiction Y1 - 1961 A1 - Booth, Wayne C. PB - University of Chicago Press CY - Chicago ER -