Description:
"A strong and eloquent book that skillfully combines intellectual rigor and personal reflection. The debate between theory and common sense provides a kind of dramatic tension that makes for lively and pleasurable reading. In its balanced approach and in its breadth, this is one of the best books I know of for introducing students to literary theory."--Robert Morrissey, University of Chicago
Review Quotes: "Like everything that Antoine Compagnon writes, [this book] is intelligent, oblique, ironic, surprising the reader with unexpected shifts and reversals. It may annoy both theorists and the advocates of common sense, but if they surrender to their annoyance, they will have missed the point."---Terence Cave, Times Literary Supplement