"The Shaping of Text pays homage to the work of the late John Porter Houston, who wrote extensively on style, rhetoric, and narrative and poetic techniques in Western European literature. It is appropriate that the essays in this volume focus on the form of the literary work and the ways in which form determines meaning." "William Calin's essay on the saint's life analyzes the use of antithesis as a poetic and structural device that illustrates the saint's fundamental understanding of the relationship between the ephemeral reality of his physical existence and the absolute, timeless reality to which he aspires. Raymond LaCharite's study of Rabelais focuses on the author's self-conscious awareness of this relationship and of Renaissance preoccupation with reading as both an act of creation and interpretation. George Joseph's study of three Renaissance poets focuses on the use of paradox as both a figure of speech and as a genre that serves both as a structure and as a basis for the interaction in the poetry. David Rubin's essay on La Fontaine emphasizes the ways in which the register of style in the Fables is used to set the tone and control the meaning of the language." "In the chapters devoted to nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature one can see the continuing closer relationship between the book as a work of art and the reality in which it interacts. Suzanne Nash analyzes the strategy Mme. de Stael uses in writing De l'Allemagne, a book written less to present an accurate portrayal of Germany than to promote her own republican ideals for France. Ross Chambers's essay probes the question of the theme of melancholy in Romantic writing and its relationship to the social and political structures of the period; Edward Kaplan shows how a growing ethical, social concern can be seen in Baudelaire's revised Les Fleurs du Mal; Rima Reck and Edward Kaplan reflect the growing use of literature as a vehicle for influencing public opinion." "Stirling Haig analyzes Flaubert's careful use of style and his awareness that reality is ultimately shaped by the beholder's perspective. Finnally, Virginia La Charite's chapter on Proust returns to the idea of a structure within a structure, in this case the architecture of the cathedral as a metaphor of synthesis, an aesthetic device that gives an intelligible structure to Proust's enormous but intricately complex, mass of details." "If John Porter Houston focused on form and style, it is because he understood the semiotic nature of all things: that a writer's style is a subtle form of refined communication or, as Houston wrote, "style is an absolute manner of seeing things for Proust, a question of vision, and so constitutes the ultimate reality of literature.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved