Desire and Truth: Functions of Plot in Eighteenth-Century English Novels

by Patricia Meyer Spacks

Book Overview

Desire and Truth offers a major reassessment of the history of eighteenth-century fiction by showing how plot challenges or reinforces conventional categories of passion and rationality. Arguing that fiction creates and conveys its essential truths through plot, Patricia Meyer Spacks demonstrates that eighteenth-century fiction is both profoundly realistic and consistently daring.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226768457
• ISBN13: 9780226768458
• Release Date: April 1990
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

"Desire and Truth"

An interesting overview of the variety of different plot structures that operate in the early novel, from Lennox (why not Defoe?) to Austen & Scott. Spacks argues that plots reflect a variety of different cultural tensions of the times, all of which are driven by varieties of "desires" or ambitions for different kinds of power. Free of jargon, and Spacks helps you out with useful summaries if you haven't read the specific novels she's discussing.