Author Description

"How can literature best be defined? As just one anong many modes of social interaction? As a fixed canon of texts? In this book, [the author] focuses on the ability of literary discourse to refresh and change the ways in which people think and feel about the world. His argument ranges across a number of twentieth-century theories of discourse, psychology, and literature including schema theory, Artificial Intelligence, and literary theories focusing on text and reader. These different modes of analysis are brought to bear on a variety of texts from both the conventional literary canon and from non-literary discourse. In his final chapter, the author discusses the implications of his ideas for literature teaching"--Back cover.