Once-Told Tales

An Essay in Literary Aesthetics

Drawing comparisons with other art forms, this book examines the role of aesthetic features in silent reading, such as narrative structure, and the core experience of reading a novel as a story rather than a scholarly exercise.

• Focuses on the experience of the art form known as the novel
• Uses the more common perspective of a reader who reads to be told a story, rather than for scholarly or critical analysis
• Draws comparisons with experience of the other arts, music in particular
• Explores the different effects of a range of narrative approaches