The Quality of Fiction: The Rhetorical Transmission of Literary Theory
This is the second of several essays investigating the continuity of literary theory and of the principles which may account for its development. In the first, ‘The Ancient Hypothesis of Fiction: An Essay on the Origins of Literary Theory,’ I described how the nature and sources of literary terminol...
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
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Published: |
Cambridge University Press
1974
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In: |
Traditio
Year: 1974, Volume: 30, Pages: 1-118 |
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Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Summary: | This is the second of several essays investigating the continuity of literary theory and of the principles which may account for its development. In the first, ‘The Ancient Hypothesis of Fiction: An Essay on the Origins of Literary Theory,’ I described how the nature and sources of literary terminology might indicate the premises upon which a theory of literature, in the sense of fiction or poesis, was conceived and defended. The adoption of terms from medicine, politics, ethics, geometry, dialectic, and rhetoric by those who first discussed the purposes and deficiencies of fiction reveals the way in which a theory of literature may have been forming in its borrowed vocabulary prior to the recorded documents, as well as the ways in which later theorists would perceive, define, and defend their critical principles. Since the premises of its emergence were to determine its methods of survival and transmission, I shall briefly recapitulate my previous analysis of them as an introduction to the present essay. |
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ISSN: | 2166-5508 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Traditio
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0362152900006486 |