This is the first comprehensive study in any language of anagnorisis (recognition) - one of the least familiar terms in Aristotelian poetics, yet used to describe one of the most familiar features of drama and narrative fiction. The book traces the history of the term 'anagnorisis' and explores some of the ways in which it continues to be of value as a focus for theoretical reflection. Then, in a series of critical essays, the author analyses examples of recognition plots drawn from French, German, and English literature,including Corneille, Racine and Goethe, Shakespeare, James, and Conrad. Examined thus from many angles, recognition can at last been seen to deserve its place in the limelight, as a topic of the first importance, perhaps the most strictly literary of all topics in poetics. The book is aimed at a very wide readership, with English translations provided for quotations where necessary.