The Rhetoric of Fiction

Description

A standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts. Its concepts and terms have become standard critical lexicon. Cover Copyright page 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 I. To All Narrative, Early and Late A. ''I have... ruled out many of the most interesting questions about fiction." [Preface] B. "But it would be a serious mistake to think that what we need is a return to Balzac... or to Fielding...." [P. 397] C. "... [absolute silence ]..." II. To All Conceivable Rhetorical Devices A. "we might become too fully immersed in his [Marcher's] own highly plausible view of things..." [P. 280] B. "Perhaps the most overworked distinction is that of person." [P. 150] C. "We can go on and on [if we are trying to purge works of all signs of the authors voice], purging..." [Pp. 18–19] III. To Culture, Politics, and History A. "... I have arbitrarily isolated technique from all of the social and psychological forces that affect authors and readers." [Preface] Clarifications I. The Rhetoric in Fiction and Fiction As Rhetoric A. "...rhetoric in the larger sense... rhetoric in the narrower sense." [P. 109] B. "...the question of Lawrence's impartiality seems completely unrelated to his choice of technical devices..." [Pp. 80–81] II. Rhetoric and Morality A. "The best of these [reasons for our sympathetic engagement in narrative events] has always been the spectacle of a good man facing moral choices that are important." [P. 131] B. "But is there no choosing among effects?... impersonal narration has raised moral difficulties too often for us to dismiss moral questions as irrelevant to technique." [P. 378] III. Kinds of Authors and Readers A. "Even if we conclude... we may... we should be... Unless we are quite sure... we must entertain the possibility that... We certainly meet this difficulty...." [P. 321—and too many other pages] B. "The 'implied author' chooses... what we read..." [Pp. 74–75] C. "In short, we have looked for so long at foggy landscapes reflected in misty mirrors that we have come to like fog..." [P. 372] IV. Kinds of Literary Work A. "In dealing with point of view the novelist must always deal with the individual work...." [Pp. 164–65] V. A "Living Plot" of a Special Kind Beckett's Company As Example Authoritative Refusal-To-Tell in Modern Narration Starting Over Bibliography I. General [no. 1] II. Technique As Rhetoric [no. 81] A. The Telling-Showing Distinction, The Author's Voice and Reliable Narration [no. 81] B. Some Alternatives to Reliable Telling [no. 173] C. Realism, Distance from the Real, and Technique [no. 208] III. The Author's Objectivity and the "Second Self" [no. 239] IV. Artistic Purity, Rhetoric, and the Audience [no. 259] V. Narrative Irony and Unreliable Narrators [no. 282] A. General Discussions of Irony, Ambiguity, and Obscurity [no. 282] B. Some Troubles with Unreliability: Disputes, Revaluations, and Confessions [no. 300] Sherwood Anderson [no. 300] Jane Austen Emily Brontë Albert Camus Cervantes Chaucer Joseph Conrad Fëdor Dostoevski James T. Farrell William Faulkner Ford Madox Ford Henry Green Nathaniel Hawthorne Ernest Hemingway Henry James [no. 324] James Joyce Mary McCarthy Herman Melville John Milton Marcel Proust Samuel Richardson Jonathan Swift Robert Penn Warren C. Some Sources of the Modern Unreliable Narrator [no. 362] 1. Examples of self-conscious narration used as ornament in comic fiction before Sterne [no. 362] 2. Examples of works (before 1760) held together by the self-conscious portrait of the commentator 3. Examples of satires using unreliable and self-conscious narration 4. Examples of imitations of Tristram Shandy and other works influenced by Sterne D. A Gallery of Unreliable Narrators and Reflectors Supplementary Bibliography, 1961–82, by James Phelan [no. 364] I. General [no. 364] II. Technique As Rhetoric [no. 511] A. The Author's Voice and Narrative Technique [no. 511] B. Realism, Distance from the Real, and Technique [no. 590] III. The Author's Objectivity and the Second Self [no. 615] IV. Artistic Purity, Rhetoric, and Audience [no. 633] V. Narrative Irony and Ambiguity [no. 742] Index to the First Edition A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z Index to the Bibliographies A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z Index to the Bibliographies by Number Bibliography No. 1 No. 25 No. 50 No. 75 No. 100 No. 125 No. 150 No. 175 No. 200 No. 225 No. 250 No. 275 No. 300 No. 325 No. 350 No. 363 Supplementary Bibliography, 1961–82 No. 364 No. 375 No. 400 No. 425 No. 450 No. 475 No. 500 No. 525 No. 550 No. 575 No. 600 No. 625 No. 650 No. 675 No. 700 No. 725 No. 750 No. 765