Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach

Michael McKeon

JHU Press, 2000 - Literary Criticism - 947 pages

A major collection of essays on the novel.

Michael McKeon, author of The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740, here assembles a collection of influential essays on the theory of the novel. Carefully chosen selections from Frye, Benjamin, Lévi-Strauss, Lukács, Bakhtin, and other prominent theorists explore the historical significance of the novel as a genre, from its early beginnings to its modern variations in the postmodern novel and postcolonial novel.

Offering a generous selection of key theoretical texts for students and scholars alike, Theory of the Novel also presents a provocative argument for studying the genre. In his introduction to the volume and in headnotes to each section, McKeon argues that genre theory and history provide the best approach to understanding the novel. All the selections in this anthology date from the twentieth century—most from the last forty years—and represent the attempts of different theorists, and different theoretical schools, to describe the historical stages of the genre's formal development.

Contents

• Part: 1
• NonGenre Literature: 51
• Part: 71
• Walter BENJAMIN The Storyteller: 77
• Claude LéviSTRAUSS From The Savage: 94
• of Dreams 149 Family Romances: 156
• Part Four: 179
• Part Five: 265
• José Ortega y Gasset From Meditations: 271
• Notes on the Novel: 294
• Part: 317
• Part Seven: 355
• Part Eigh: 435
• Studies: 441
• A Political History of the Novel: 467
• Imagining Self in NineteenthCentury America: 476
• Part Nine: 485
• Narrative: 493
• Selves Individuals: 537
• ROSALIND COWARD AND John Ellis From: 593
• Michael Davitt Bell From The Development: 632
• Part Eleven: 657
• Henry JAMES From Preface to The Golden: 665
• Walter Benjamin The Work of Art in the Age: 673
• André Bazin In Defense of Mixed Cinema: 719
• Part Twelve: 733
• VIRGINIA Woolf Modern Fiction 739: 739
• Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown: 745
• Joseph Frank From Spatial Form: 784
• The New Novel: 803
• Metafiction: 830
• Part Fourteen: 851
• Doris SOMMER AND GEORGE YUDICE Latin: 859
• Postmodernism the Post in Postcolonial?: 882
• the Possible: 900
• Suggested Further Reading: 923

About the author

Michael McKeon is a professor in the Department of English at Rutgers University. He is the author of The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740, also available from Johns Hopkins.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach; Johns Hopkins Paperback; Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach, Michael McKeon
• Editor: Michael McKeon
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: JHU Press, 2000
• ISBN: 080186397X, 9780801863974
• Length: 947 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / Books & Reading; Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory