The melodramatic imagination
Subtitle: Balzac, Henry James, melodrama, and the mode of excess : with a new preface
By: Peter Brooks
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 235
Subjects: Balzac, Honoré de, -- 1799-1850 -- Criticism and interpretation; James, Henry, -- 1843-1916 -- Criticism and interpretation; Melodrama; Romanticism; Fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism
Description: "In this lucid and fascinating book, Peter Brooks argues that melodrama is a crucial mode of expression in modern literature. After studying stage melodrama as a dominant popular form in the nineteenth century, he moves on to Balzac and Henry James to show how these "realist" novelists created fiction using the rhetoric and excess of melodrama - in particular its secularized conflicts of good and evil, salvation and damnation. The Melodramatic Imagination has become a classic work for understanding theater, fiction, and film."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Originally published: 1976

Includes bibliographical references and index