Art and Desire: A Study in the Aesthetics of Fiction

An attempt to re-humanize the theoretical discussion of literature. The author declares in his preface that "novels, poems and plays, are not "texts" but works; literature is a humane activity practised by sentient beings and the question of its function can be addressed by reference to the common experiences and intuitions of the participants, refined, clarified and structured by the processes of rational discourse." In testing a theory of aesthetic experience against fiction, the work explores fundamental questions about art and reality, emotion and aesthetic order and the value of literature and literary criticism. The author has been influenced in his ideas by the works of Freud and Wittgenstein and illustrates the theory in practice in an analysis of "Wuthering Heights".