ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The distinctively modern development notion has recently been very much under threat, and a good deal of ultra-modern criticism has concerned itself with the 'death' of the author and the 'birth' of the reader. One would not expect autobiographical literature to be popular in an ambience of this kind, and yet this is precisely what it has become. A primary commitment must be to the works as artistic objects in their own right. This enables the author and the reader to coexist in a peculiar allegiance; for both of them the object (and the objectification) transcends the subject. This is one of the special satisfactions to be derived from this particular branch of 'post-Romantic' literature, and one of the most interesting evidences of the twentieth century's continuing struggle with the legacy of Romanticism.
