Fiction and Diction

One of the founders of structuralist literary theory, Gerard Genette here addresses the question of "literariness" -- of what it  is that makes a text an aesthetic object. Published in French in 1991, Fiction and Diction explores the conditions under which a written or spoken text is perceived as "literature". With reference to writers and theorists from Aristotle to Moliere to Iris Murdoch, Genette investigates the different facets -- particularly "regimes", "criteria" and "modes" -- of literariness.