Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative (Revised)
Peter Brooks
(Author)
Description
A book which should appeal to both literary theorists and to readers of the novel, this study invites the reader to consider how the plot reflects the patterns of human destiny and seeks to impose a new meaning on life.Product Details
Price
$42.00
Publisher
Harvard University Press
Publish Date
March 01, 1992
Pages
392
Dimensions
5.5 X 1.03 X 8.11 inches | 0.96 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780674748927
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Peter Brooks has written extensively about the nineteenth-century novel, French and English. His books include The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess; Reading for the Plot, Body Work, Psychoanalysis and Storytelling and The Emperor's Body: A Novel. After many years on the faculty at Yale University, he currently teaches at Princeton University.
Reviews
Peter Brooks has delivered a major contribution to narrative theory and critical practice in a book remarkable for its lucidity and theoretical adventurousness.--Terry Eagleton "Literature and History "
A major book by a major critic. It will appeal both to literary theorists and to readers of the novel, and it is likely to be seen as an important point of reference for many years to come.--Terence Cave "Times Literary Supplement "
What is...gratifying about Brooks's approach is his insistence that plot elements must survive even the most radical postmodern consciousness... As he so eloquently confirms, so long as there is self-conscious life on earth, there will be narrative plotting in some form or another. To expect us to give it up would be like asking us to give up breathing.--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt "New York Times "
A brilliant study... The author goes beyond what he considers the too static approach of the structuralist literary critics to probe the dynamics of narrative and show how they answer our psychic needs... Reading for the Plot is a stimulating, ground-breaking book that invites us to consider anew how plotting both reflects the patterns of human destiny and seeks to impose meaning on life.--Publishers Weekly
A major book by a major critic. It will appeal both to literary theorists and to readers of the novel, and it is likely to be seen as an important point of reference for many years to come.--Terence Cave "Times Literary Supplement "
What is...gratifying about Brooks's approach is his insistence that plot elements must survive even the most radical postmodern consciousness... As he so eloquently confirms, so long as there is self-conscious life on earth, there will be narrative plotting in some form or another. To expect us to give it up would be like asking us to give up breathing.--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt "New York Times "
A brilliant study... The author goes beyond what he considers the too static approach of the structuralist literary critics to probe the dynamics of narrative and show how they answer our psychic needs... Reading for the Plot is a stimulating, ground-breaking book that invites us to consider anew how plotting both reflects the patterns of human destiny and seeks to impose meaning on life.--Publishers Weekly
