ABSTRACT
We all know that studying a text where arguments are our concern involves a different attitude from reading, say, a novel for relaxation or entertainment. Although there may be an argument embedded in the text of a novel – an argument about how we ought to live our lives, for example – quite often we are, quite rightly, unconcerned with argument. We might simply want to lose ourselves in the story; the criterion we use to assess it will not usually be how good its arguments are, for there may be none, but, say, how it involves us.
