The Shaping of Experience: A Study of Rhetorical Methods and Structure in Narrative Works by Chaucer, Fielding, and Dickens

Author / Editor
Morgan, Mary Valentina.

Title
The Shaping of Experience: A Study of Rhetorical Methods and Structure in Narrative Works by Chaucer, Fielding, and Dickens

Published
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1980): 2126A.

Description
Rhetoric functions to shape the content of the narrative in a particular way and is successful when it enables the reader to actively participate in constructing the fictional world. Chaucer, Fielding, and Dickens call attention to their narrative strategies and examine the tools of narrative art as their stories are told.
Chaucer's MLT and MkT fail dramatically as stories--they challenge the reader's expectation of compatibility of subject matter and the narrator's treatment of that matter, demanding to be read and understood on quite different grounds.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.
Man of Law and His Tale.
Monk and His Tale.