"Two fundamental questions underlie the subject of this thought-provoking study: What is the relationship between fiction and reality? What is the role of memory in storytelling and the writing of plots? Contrary to poststructuralists and postmodernists, Babuts (emer., French, Syracuse Univ.) not only rejects the denial of the self but also places the individual at the epicenter of writing and reading. He argues that despite efforts over the past 40 years to transform literature into ideologically interpreted history, literature is neither ideology nor history, but transfigured reality. Language produces meaning, but the creation of meaning occurs in the memory of the individual, which distills, reconceives, and surpasses outside reality. Displaying impeccable scholarship, Babuts sheds new light on Stéphane Mallarmé's "Hérodiade," Gustave Flaubert's "Hérodias," and Mihai Eminescu's "Luceafarul." He also takes his readers on a fascinating voyage through centuries of artistic creation, from Aristotle and Virgil to Shakespeare, Proust, Baudrillard, Ricoeur, and Tarantino. He references figures as different as Marco Polo, John F.

Kennedy, and Lady Diana, while analyzing the dynamics of rumor in oral culture. Babuts skillfully lays the foundation for a cognitive approach to the interpretation of poetry and literature, proving that memory is crucial to the way humans process art. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." -C. B. Kerr, CHOICE "If you enjoy reading literary theory and subtle analyses of nineteenth-century fiction and theory, then Mimesis in a Cognitive Perspective: Mallarmé, Flaubert, and Eminescu is the book for you…. This book is a pleasure to read for any lover of the Romantic movement in literature and poetry.

" -Claudia Moscovici, author of Velvet Totalitarianism.