| The One vs. the Many: Minor Characters and the Space of the Protagonist in the Novel Subjects: Characters and characteristics in literature; European fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Realism in literature; Does a novel focus on one life or many? Alex Woloch uses this simple question to develop a powerful new theory of the realist novel, based on how narratives distribute limited attention among a crowded field of characters. His argument has important implications for both literary studies and narrative theory. Alex Woloch is Assistant Professor of English at Stanford University and is coeditor of Whose Freud?: The Place of Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture . |