A landmark work of literary criticism from one of Britain's best loved and most influential writers.

David Lodge (CBE) is an internationally acclaimed author and critic. His novels have been awarded the Hawthornden Prize, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His influential works of literary criticism continue to shape the way we read literature today.

Preface Prefatory note to the Second Impression Acknowledgements PART ONE: PROBLEMS AND EXECUTIONS 1. What is Literature 2. George Orwell's 'A Hanging', and 'Michael Lake Describes' 3. Oscar Wilde: 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' 4. What is Realism? 5. Arnold Bennett: The Old Wives' Tale 6. William Burroughs: The Naked Lunch 7. The Realistic Tradition 8. Two Kinds of Modern Fiction 9. Crticism and Realism 10. The Novel and the Nouvelle Crtique 11. Conclusion to Part One PART TWO: Metaphor and Metonymy 1. Jackobson's Theory 2. Two Types of Aphasia 3. The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles 4. Drama and Film 5. Poetry, Prose and the Poetic 6. Types of Description 7. The Executions Revisited 8. The Metonymic Text as Metaphor 9. Metaphor and Context PART THREE: MODERNISTS, ANTIMODERNISTS AND POSTMODERNIST 1. James Joyce 2. Gertrude Stein 3. Ernest Hemingway 4. D.H. Lawrence 5. Virginia Woolf 6. In the Thirties 7. Philip Larkin 8. Postmodernist Fiction Appendix A: 'A Hanging' by George Orwell Appendix B: 'Michael Lake Describes What the Executioner Actually Faces' Appendix C: Extract from The Naked Lunch by William Burroughs Notes and References Index