ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the two main modes of expression in literature – poetry and prose – as Aristotle says in Rhetoric. It explores texts through close reading or analysis across the genres of poetry, drama, fiction, non-fiction and theory. It demonstrates that prose, as much as poetry, needs attention and that genres share the making and seeing of language, that practice tells us something about theory and theory about practice. Genre, then, perhaps more in English than in French, is not a law but a guide and a guide that crosses many boundaries. The book focuses on the making of poets and the seeing of theorists and explores the tension between practice and theory. Tensions occur between private and public and among poetry, philosophy and history.
