Kennedy, George A.

Dr. George A. Kennedy taught Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for thirty years. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an elected member of the American Philosophical Society. Under Presidents Carter and Reagan, Dr. Kennedy served as member of the National Humanities Council and was earlier President of the American Philological Association and of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric. He is author of thirteen books on the history of rhetoric and literary criticism, including Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern times, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism, and Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction; as well as translations from the Greek, Latin and French into English.

Fictitious Authors and Imaginary Novels in French, English and American Fiction From the 18th to the Start of the 21st Century

2005 0-7734-6251-1
Some of the greatest writers of fiction have introduced imaginary novelists as characters in their novels and short stories, sometimes including extended examples or descriptions of the character's work, in a few instances building whole smaller works into the larger structure of their novels. The present study, addressed to the general reader of fiction, is concerned for the first time with collecting and examining these fictional creations by some of the most famous French, English, and American writers, including Balzac, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne, Trollope, James, Proust, Wolfe, Murdock, Updike, Roth, and Byatt, and also introducing readers to striking instances by lesser known writers. Imaginary fiction is often entertaining and readable in itself; in addition it can perform important literary functions for the plot and themes of the work in which it occurs, it provides both imaginary and real author opportunities for literary criticism and social satire, and it can also perform psychological and therapeutic purposes for the writer.