From Text To . . .

Essays in Aesthetics includes most of the essays from Gérard Genette's Figures IV, edited and translated by Dorrit Cohn. It collects essays, lectures, and introductions written over three decades and offers a solid overview of Genette's work in this period. As the title suggests, many of these essays deal with philosophical problems in aesthetics, while others explore painting, music, and other arts. However, most of the collection's best essays are principally biographical or literary. These include "From Work To Text," Genette's account of his and his generation's intellectual development, "The Diary, The Anti-Diary," which memorializes Roland Barthes, and two "suites" on Stendhal and Proust. This is a mature, sensitive, and witty critic returning to meditate on his preferred authors. Readers interested in literary theory, nineteenth- and twentieth-century French literature, and interdisciplinary approaches to literature and other arts will find this book valuable.