The Rhetoric of Fiction

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