A digest of plots and critiques of 318 twentieth century nonfiction works "in the areas of autobiography, memoirs, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and other subjects for the non-specialist reader"--Publisher's catalog.

Contains over 70 new plays never before covered in a Masterplots series, from previously missed classics to contemporary award winners. Each article lists principal characters, describes the play, and analyzes themes and meanings, dramatic devices, and critical content.

Examines the theme, characters, plot, style and technique of more than 1,200 nineteenth- and twentieth-century works by prominent authors from around the world.

In this important contribution to narrative theory, Marie-Laure Ryan applies insights from artificial intelligence and the theory of possible worlds to the study of narrative and fiction. For Ryan, the theory of possible worlds provides a more nuanced way of discussing the commonplace notion of a fictional "world," while artificial intelligence contributes to narratology and the theory of fiction directly via its researches into the congnitive processes of texts and automatic story generation. Although Ryan applies exotic theories to the study of narrative and to fiction, her book maintains a solid basis in literary theory and makes the formal models developed by AI researchers accessible to the student of literature. By combining the philosophical background of possible world theory with models inspired by AI, the book fulfills a pressing need in narratology for new paradigms and an interdisciplinary perspective.

This insightful volumes the use of imitation and the modern cult of originality through a consideration of the disparate fates of two Venetian painters - the canonised master Titian and his artistic heir, the little-known Padovanino.