Dialogue, Didacticism and the Genres of Dispute: Literary Dialogues in the Age of Revolution (The Enlightenment World)

Dialogue was a pivotal genre for the spread of Enlightenment ideas. Focusing on non-canonical British writers Wallbank examines the evolution of dialogue as a genre during the Romantic period. He argues that dialogue often adopted a didactic stance explicitly geared towards making an argument sound persuasive, and demonstrates its influence in the development of such innovations as the realist novel, philosophical perspectivism and the advent of psychoanalysis.