Genres in Discourse

by Tzvetan Todorov

Book Overview

This is a collection in translation of recent essays by Tzvetan Todorov, one of the most eminent of today's literary critics. The essays concentrate on the idea of genre, literary or otherwise, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521349990
• ISBN13: 9780521349994
• Release Date: August 1990
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Literature, Broken Down into Its Components

Tzvetan Todorov has become a giant in literary criticism ever since his first emergence as a thinker in the 1960's. GENRES IN DISCOURSE - this English translation by Catherine Porter appeared in 1990 - is a slim but intellectually dense treatise on what differentiates and defines literature, in both the largest sense and the most minute. Todorov explores the functional and structural elements of literature; the origin of genres; narratology; poetry when "verse" is removed; and the complex interaction between reader and text. He then moves to separate essays discussing Dostoevsky, Poe, Conrad, and James. The chapter on James, "The Awkward Age," catches Todorov at his best as he explores the meaning and incomprehension of words and sentences as a central theme in James's work.Todorov is a master of discourse, as his arguments contain the logic of classic reasoning with the leaps of an inventive thinker. Make no mistake - this book is for the academic and the literary critic, and not for the casual reader. Paragraphs sometimes need to be read several times to understand their full meaning, but for those who are interested in theories of literature, the rewards are worth the concentration needed.