By exploring central issues in the philosophy of literature, illustrated by a wide range of novels, poems, and plays, Philosophy of Literature gets to the heart of why literature matters to us and sheds new light on the nature and interpretation of literary works. Provides a comprehensive study, along with original insights, into the philosophy of literatureDevelops a unique point of view - from one of the field's leading exponentsOffers examples of key issues using excerpts from well-known novels, poems, and plays from different historical periods

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishabledoubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surfacedifferences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre''s novel La Nausée and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be andwhat it really is.

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishabledoubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surfacedifferences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre''s novel La Nausée and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be andwhat it really is.

Peter Lamarque argues that what sets poetry apart from other uses of language is playfulness, contrasted not with seriousness but with single-mindedness. Poetry gives the imagination free rein, engaging in exploratory journeys of thought, emotion, and ways of seeing without prescribed methods or fixed conclusions. Poets and their readers participate in a shared game of reflecting on the possibilities disclosed by images, figures of speech, and linguistic invention, with the understanding that how something is presented fundamentally determines what is presented. Attention to a poem's form-the total configuration of elements in the linguistic artefact-is therefore central, yielding poetry's distinctive pleasures. Precision of expression, where words seem exactly right in context, establishes poetry's own kind of truth.In Playing with Words, Lamarque situates these claims within the philosophy of poetry, an emerging branch of analytical aesthetics. He examines familiar notions-form, experience, expression, thought, and poetic truth-showing that under analytical scrutiny they challenge orthodox views of meaning, communication, interpretation, paraphrase, emotion, and truth. At the book's centre lies the relation of form and thought: poetic thought acquires its identity through its mode of articulation, just as poetic emotion is created by expression itself. Attention to form shifts focus from meaning to experience, and from truth as correspondence to truth as a quality of expression. This perspective, Lamarque shows, unsettles philosophical certainties about the functions of language, and marks a significant and novel contribution to the philosophy of poetry.

This book examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore matters of universal human interest. While rejecting the traditional view that literature is important for the truths that it imparts, the authors also reject attempts to cut off literature altogether from real human concerns. Their detailed account of fictionality, mimesis, and cognitive value helps restore to literature its distinctive status among cultural practices.The authors also explore the limits of fictionality, particularly in relation to metaphysical and sceptical views, prevalent in modern thought, according to which the world itself is a kind of fiction, and truth no more than a cultural construct. They identify different conceptions of fiction in science, logic, epistemology, and make-believe, and thereby challenge the idea that discourse per se is fictional and that different modes of discourse are at root indistinguishable. They offer rigorous analyses of the roles of narrative, imagination, metaphor, and 'making' in human thought processes.Both in their methods and in their conclusions, Lamarque and Olsen aim to bring much-needed rigour and clarity to debates about the values of literature, and to provide new, philosophically sound foundations for a genuine change of direction in literary theorizing.

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishable doubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surface differences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre's novel La Nausée and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be and what it really is.

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishable doubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surface differences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre's novel La Nausée and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be and what it really is.

For over fifty years, philosophers working within the broader remit of analytic philosophy have developed and refined a substantial body of work in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, curating a core foundation of scholarship which offers rigor and clarity on matters of profound and perennial interest relating to art and all forms of aesthetic appreciation. Now in its second edition and thoroughly revised, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art—The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology captures this legacy in a comprehensive introduction to the core philosophical questions and conversations in aesthetics. Through 57 key essays selected by leading scholars Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, this anthology collects modern classics as well as new contributions on essential topics such as the identification and ontology of art, interpretation, values of art, art and knowledge, and fiction and the imagination. New to this edition are selections which treat aesthetic experience more widely, including essays on the aesthetics of nature and aesthetics in everyday life. Other carefully-chosen pieces analyze the practice and experience of specific art forms in greater detail, including painting, photography, film, literature, music, and popular art such as comics.This bestselling collection is an essential resource for students and scholars of aesthetics, designed to foster a foundational understanding of both long-standing and contemporary topics in the field.

For over fifty years, philosophers working within the broader remit of analytic philosophy have developed and refined a substantial body of work in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, curating a core foundation of scholarship which offers rigor and clarity on matters of profound and perennial interest relating to art and all forms of aesthetic appreciation. Now in its second edition and thoroughly revised, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art—The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology captures this legacy in a comprehensive introduction to the core philosophical questions and conversations in aesthetics. 

Through 57 key essays selected by leading scholars Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, this anthology collects modern classics as well as new contributions on essential topics such as the identification and ontology of art, interpretation, values of art, art and knowledge, and fiction and the imagination. New to this edition are selections which treat aesthetic experience more widely, including essays on the aesthetics of nature and aesthetics in everyday life. Other carefully-chosen pieces analyze the practice and experience of specific art forms in greater detail, including painting, photography, film, literature, music, and popular art such as comics.

This bestselling collection is an essential resource for students and scholars of aesthetics, designed to foster a foundational understanding of both long-standing and contemporary topics in the field.

For over fifty years, philosophers working within the broader remit of analytic philosophy have developed and refined a substantial body of work in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, curating a core foundation of scholarship which offers rigor and clarity on matters of profound and perennial interest relating to art and all forms of aesthetic appreciation. Now in its second edition and thoroughly revised, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art—The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology captures this legacy in a comprehensive introduction to the core philosophical questions and conversations in aesthetics. 

Through 57 key essays selected by leading scholars Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, this anthology collects modern classics as well as new contributions on essential topics such as the identification and ontology of art, interpretation, values of art, art and knowledge, and fiction and the imagination. New to this edition are selections which treat aesthetic experience more widely, including essays on the aesthetics of nature and aesthetics in everyday life. Other carefully-chosen pieces analyze the practice and experience of specific art forms in greater detail, including painting, photography, film, literature, music, and popular art such as comics.

This bestselling collection is an essential resource for students and scholars of aesthetics, designed to foster a foundational understanding of both long-standing and contemporary topics in the field.

This anthology provides comprehensive coverage of the major contributions of analytic philosophy to aesthetics and the philosophy of art, from the earliest beginnings in the 1950's to the present time. Traces the contributions of the analytic tradition to aesthetics and the philosophy of art, from the 1950’s to the present time.Designed as a comprehensive guide to the field, it presents the most often-cited papers that students and researchers encounter.Addresses a wide range of topics, including identifying art, ontology, intention and interpretation, values of art, aesthetic properties, fictionality, and the aesthetics of nature.Explores particular art forms, including pictorial art, literature, music, and the popular arts.

By exploring central issues in the philosophy of literature, illustrated by a wide range of novels, poems, and plays, Philosophy of Literature gets to the heart of why literature matters to us and sheds new light on the nature and interpretation of literary works. Provides a comprehensive study, along with original insights, into the philosophy of literatureDevelops a unique point of view - from one of the field's leading exponentsOffers examples of key issues using excerpts from well-known novels, poems, and plays from different historical periods

What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology.He highlights 'opacity' as a feature of literary narratives and examines the implications for our understanding of fictional worlds and fictional characters. Throughout he challenges received views about narrative, questioning the indispensability of narrative in an individual's self-conception and the importance of both truth and emotion as measures of literary greatness. He reflects on the 'non-fiction' novel arguing that it does not weaken the distinction between fiction and no-fiction.The book offers a compelling and original account of these and other issues, making a critical contribution to topical and wide-ranging debates.

What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology.He highlights 'opacity' as a feature of literary narratives and examines the implications for our understanding of fictional worlds and fictional characters. Throughout he challenges received views about narrative, questioning the indispensability of narrative in an individual's self-conception and the importance of both truth and emotion as measures of literary greatness. He reflects on the 'non-fiction' novel arguing that it does not weaken the distinction between fiction and no-fiction.The book offers a compelling and original account of these and other issues, making a critical contribution to topical and wide-ranging debates.

What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology.He highlights ''opacity'' as a feature of literary narratives and examines the implications for our understanding of fictional worlds and fictional characters. Throughout he challenges received views about narrative, questioning the indispensability of narrative in an individual''s self-conception and the importance of both truth and emotion as measures of literary greatness. He reflects on the ''non-fiction'' novel arguing that it does not weaken the distinction between fiction and no-fiction.The book offers a compelling and original account of these and other issues, making a critical contribution to topical and wide-ranging debates.

By exploring central issues in the philosophy of literature, illustrated by a wide range of novels, poems, and plays, Philosophy of Literature gets to the heart of why literature matters to us and sheds new light on the nature and interpretation of literary works. Provides a comprehensive study, along with original insights, into the philosophy of literatureDevelops a unique point of view - from one of the field's leading exponentsOffers examples of key issues using excerpts from well-known novels, poems, and plays from different historical periods

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishabledoubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surfacedifferences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre''s novel La Nausée and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be andwhat it really is.

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishabledoubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surfacedifferences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre''s novel La Nausée and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be andwhat it really is.

Peter Lamarque argues that what sets poetry apart from other uses of language is playfulness, contrasted not with seriousness but with single-mindedness. Poetry gives the imagination free rein, engaging in exploratory journeys of thought, emotion, and ways of seeing without prescribed methods or fixed conclusions. Poets and their readers participate in a shared game of reflecting on the possibilities disclosed by images, figures of speech, and linguistic invention, with the understanding that how something is presented fundamentally determines what is presented. Attention to a poem's form-the total configuration of elements in the linguistic artefact-is therefore central, yielding poetry's distinctive pleasures. Precision of expression, where words seem exactly right in context, establishes poetry's own kind of truth.In Playing with Words, Lamarque situates these claims within the philosophy of poetry, an emerging branch of analytical aesthetics. He examines familiar notions-form, experience, expression, thought, and poetic truth-showing that under analytical scrutiny they challenge orthodox views of meaning, communication, interpretation, paraphrase, emotion, and truth. At the book's centre lies the relation of form and thought: poetic thought acquires its identity through its mode of articulation, just as poetic emotion is created by expression itself. Attention to form shifts focus from meaning to experience, and from truth as correspondence to truth as a quality of expression. This perspective, Lamarque shows, unsettles philosophical certainties about the functions of language, and marks a significant and novel contribution to the philosophy of poetry.

This book examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore matters of universal human interest. While rejecting the traditional view that literature is important for the truths that it imparts, the authors also reject attempts to cut off literature altogether from real human concerns. Their detailed account of fictionality, mimesis, and cognitive value helps restore to literature its distinctive status among cultural practices.The authors also explore the limits of fictionality, particularly in relation to metaphysical and sceptical views, prevalent in modern thought, according to which the world itself is a kind of fiction, and truth no more than a cultural construct. They identify different conceptions of fiction in science, logic, epistemology, and make-believe, and thereby challenge the idea that discourse per se is fictional and that different modes of discourse are at root indistinguishable. They offer rigorous analyses of the roles of narrative, imagination, metaphor, and 'making' in human thought processes.Both in their methods and in their conclusions, Lamarque and Olsen aim to bring much-needed rigour and clarity to debates about the values of literature, and to provide new, philosophically sound foundations for a genuine change of direction in literary theorizing.

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishable doubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surface differences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre's novel La Nausée and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be and what it really is.

Work and Object is a study of fundamental questions in the metaphysics of art, notably how works relate to the materials that constitute them. Issues about the creation of works, what is essential and inessential to their identity, their distinct kinds of properties, including aesthetic properties, their amenability to interpretation, their style, the conditions under which they can go out of existence, and their relation to perceptually indistinguishable doubles (e.g. forgeries and parodies), are raised and debated. A core theme is that works like paintings, music, literature, sculpture, architecture, films, photographs, multi-media installations, and many more besides, have fundamental features in common, as cultural artefacts, in spite of enormous surface differences. It is their nature as distinct kinds of things, grounded in distinct ontological categories, that is the subject of this enquiry. Although much of the discussion is abstract, based in analytical metaphysics, there are numerous specific applications, including a study of Jean-Paul Sartre's novel La Nausée and recent conceptual art. Some surprising conclusions are derived, about the identity conditions of works and about the difference, often, between what a work seems to be and what it really is.

For over fifty years, philosophers working within the broader remit of analytic philosophy have developed and refined a substantial body of work in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, curating a core foundation of scholarship which offers rigor and clarity on matters of profound and perennial interest relating to art and all forms of aesthetic appreciation. Now in its second edition and thoroughly revised, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art—The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology captures this legacy in a comprehensive introduction to the core philosophical questions and conversations in aesthetics. Through 57 key essays selected by leading scholars Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, this anthology collects modern classics as well as new contributions on essential topics such as the identification and ontology of art, interpretation, values of art, art and knowledge, and fiction and the imagination. New to this edition are selections which treat aesthetic experience more widely, including essays on the aesthetics of nature and aesthetics in everyday life. Other carefully-chosen pieces analyze the practice and experience of specific art forms in greater detail, including painting, photography, film, literature, music, and popular art such as comics.This bestselling collection is an essential resource for students and scholars of aesthetics, designed to foster a foundational understanding of both long-standing and contemporary topics in the field.

For over fifty years, philosophers working within the broader remit of analytic philosophy have developed and refined a substantial body of work in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, curating a core foundation of scholarship which offers rigor and clarity on matters of profound and perennial interest relating to art and all forms of aesthetic appreciation. Now in its second edition and thoroughly revised, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art—The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology captures this legacy in a comprehensive introduction to the core philosophical questions and conversations in aesthetics. 

Through 57 key essays selected by leading scholars Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, this anthology collects modern classics as well as new contributions on essential topics such as the identification and ontology of art, interpretation, values of art, art and knowledge, and fiction and the imagination. New to this edition are selections which treat aesthetic experience more widely, including essays on the aesthetics of nature and aesthetics in everyday life. Other carefully-chosen pieces analyze the practice and experience of specific art forms in greater detail, including painting, photography, film, literature, music, and popular art such as comics.

This bestselling collection is an essential resource for students and scholars of aesthetics, designed to foster a foundational understanding of both long-standing and contemporary topics in the field.

For over fifty years, philosophers working within the broader remit of analytic philosophy have developed and refined a substantial body of work in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, curating a core foundation of scholarship which offers rigor and clarity on matters of profound and perennial interest relating to art and all forms of aesthetic appreciation. Now in its second edition and thoroughly revised, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art—The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology captures this legacy in a comprehensive introduction to the core philosophical questions and conversations in aesthetics. 

Through 57 key essays selected by leading scholars Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, this anthology collects modern classics as well as new contributions on essential topics such as the identification and ontology of art, interpretation, values of art, art and knowledge, and fiction and the imagination. New to this edition are selections which treat aesthetic experience more widely, including essays on the aesthetics of nature and aesthetics in everyday life. Other carefully-chosen pieces analyze the practice and experience of specific art forms in greater detail, including painting, photography, film, literature, music, and popular art such as comics.

This bestselling collection is an essential resource for students and scholars of aesthetics, designed to foster a foundational understanding of both long-standing and contemporary topics in the field.

This anthology provides comprehensive coverage of the major contributions of analytic philosophy to aesthetics and the philosophy of art, from the earliest beginnings in the 1950's to the present time. Traces the contributions of the analytic tradition to aesthetics and the philosophy of art, from the 1950’s to the present time.Designed as a comprehensive guide to the field, it presents the most often-cited papers that students and researchers encounter.Addresses a wide range of topics, including identifying art, ontology, intention and interpretation, values of art, aesthetic properties, fictionality, and the aesthetics of nature.Explores particular art forms, including pictorial art, literature, music, and the popular arts.

By exploring central issues in the philosophy of literature, illustrated by a wide range of novels, poems, and plays, Philosophy of Literature gets to the heart of why literature matters to us and sheds new light on the nature and interpretation of literary works. Provides a comprehensive study, along with original insights, into the philosophy of literatureDevelops a unique point of view - from one of the field's leading exponentsOffers examples of key issues using excerpts from well-known novels, poems, and plays from different historical periods

What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology.He highlights 'opacity' as a feature of literary narratives and examines the implications for our understanding of fictional worlds and fictional characters. Throughout he challenges received views about narrative, questioning the indispensability of narrative in an individual's self-conception and the importance of both truth and emotion as measures of literary greatness. He reflects on the 'non-fiction' novel arguing that it does not weaken the distinction between fiction and no-fiction.The book offers a compelling and original account of these and other issues, making a critical contribution to topical and wide-ranging debates.

What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology.He highlights 'opacity' as a feature of literary narratives and examines the implications for our understanding of fictional worlds and fictional characters. Throughout he challenges received views about narrative, questioning the indispensability of narrative in an individual's self-conception and the importance of both truth and emotion as measures of literary greatness. He reflects on the 'non-fiction' novel arguing that it does not weaken the distinction between fiction and no-fiction.The book offers a compelling and original account of these and other issues, making a critical contribution to topical and wide-ranging debates.

What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology.He highlights ''opacity'' as a feature of literary narratives and examines the implications for our understanding of fictional worlds and fictional characters. Throughout he challenges received views about narrative, questioning the indispensability of narrative in an individual''s self-conception and the importance of both truth and emotion as measures of literary greatness. He reflects on the ''non-fiction'' novel arguing that it does not weaken the distinction between fiction and no-fiction.The book offers a compelling and original account of these and other issues, making a critical contribution to topical and wide-ranging debates.