Description
Book SynopsisIn an age of authorless, contextless, deconstructed texts, Francis-Noel Thomas argues that it is time to re-examine a fundamental but neglected concept of literature: writing is an action whose agent is an individual. Addressing both general readers and scholars, Thomas offers two cases, Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan and Marcel Proust's A la recherche
Trade Review"This lucid, vigorously written book is a refreshing demonstration of the sophistication of common sense.
The Writer Writing makes a persuasive case for the reinstatement of the writer's intention, the living author, and the stubborn individuality of the particular literary text, at the heart of interpretation. Francis-Noël Thomas is an important new voice in the rising chorus of objections to the critical orthodoxies that have dominated academic literary studies over the past quarter-century."
—Robert Alter, University of California, Berkeley"In this deeply original book, Francis-Noël Thomas engages the actions of writers writing. He has allowed the artists themselves, not a theory that supersedes them, to yield access to diverse experiences that could not have been predicted by even the shrewdest of theorists. In his hands, the `old-fashioned' notion that art works are individual projects of individual artists inviting us into
diverse worlds feels refreshingly new."
—adapted from the forewordTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsForewordPrefaceAcknowledgmentsCh. 1The Writer Writing3Ch. 2'Intentions' and 'Purposes'19Interpretation and Actions19Intention and Historical Interpretation27Purpose and Literary Art36Ch. 3'Parody' or the Imitation of Disciplines46Ch. 4Explanations57"Scientific" Explanation59"Processive" Explanation63Ch. 5Bernard Shaw: Historical Explanation72"A Frankly Doctrinal Theatre"72G.B.S.75G.B.S. in the Theater79G.B.S. as Historian83Saint Joan: The Argument and Function of the Preface86The Scope of the Play91The Play of Saint Joan: Structure and Mechanism93The Epilogue102Ch. 6Marcel Proust: Psychological Explanation104The Book and the Man104"Psychology in Space and Time"110The Syllabus of Errors113The Triumph of the Will121The Historical Author, the Narrator, and Their Books126Ch. 7Historical Interpretation: The Face of the Muse and the Baker's Daughter133Notes155Index175
