Author Description

Dialogue Is A Many-sided Critical Concept; At Once An Ancient Philosophical Genre, A Formal Component Of Fiction And Drama, A Model For The Relationship Of Writer And Reader, And A Theoretical Key To The Nature Of Language. In All Its Forms, It Questions 'literature', Disturbing The Singleness And Fixity Of The Written Text With The Fluid Interactivity Of Conversation. --back Cover. The Genre: Platonic Dialogue; Renaissance Dialogue; Enlightenment Dialogue; Modern Dialogue -- Dialogue In The Novel: Inverted Commas; Dialogic Language; Dialogue Into Novel; The Dialogue Of Languages; The Ideology Of Dialogue -- Dialogue In Drama: Bakhtin On Drama; Pure Drama; Dialogue As Illusion; Dialogue As Action; Impurities Of The Theatre; Epic Theatre -- Dialogue In Literary Studies: The Go-between; Understanding As Dialogue; Tradition And The Individual Talent; The Lives Of Others; Getting Into Conversation. Peter Womack. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.