Character: Three Inquiries in Literary Studies

Over the last few decades, character—based criticism has been seen as either naive or obsolete. But now questions of character are attracting renewed interest. Making the case for a broad—based revision of our understanding of character, Character rethinks these questions from the ground up. Is it really necessary to remind literary critics that characters are made up of words? Must we forbid identification with characters? Does character—discussion force critics to embrace humanism and out...