Published in 1957
LC 57-9091
Contents:
I. The Nature of the Inquiry
(Introducing psychoanalytical grounding for why fiction matters: didactic and mimetic intentions of the author.)
"By and large psychoanalytic interest in literature has run backward, from the work of art to its creator, whereas ours will flow forward, from the work of art to the reader."
II. The Reader of Fiction
Freud: the meager satisfaction that we extract from reality leaves us starving
(Fiction enables us to satisfy needs frustrated by reality.)
III. The Materials of Fiction
IV. The Appeals to the Parts of the Psyche
V. The Functions of Form
VI. The Language of Fiction
VII. Movement and Other Resources of Form
VIII. The Process of Response
IX. Conscious and Unconscious Perception
X. Participation and the Pathways to Satisfaction
XI. Tragedy, Comedy and the Esthetic Experience
