Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I Theory -- 1. Reading and the Theory of Reading -- 2. Poems, Myths, and the Advent of Modern Reading -- Part II History -- 3. Dante and the Invention of the Novel Reader -- 4. Boccaccio, Cervantes, and the Path to Solitary Reading -- 5. Magic and History: The Roots and Branches of Dr. Faustus -- Part III Response -- 6. Intransitive Parody and the Trap of Reading: What Reading Really Is -- 7. Kleist, Kafka, and the Refutation of Reading -- The Parting of the Ways: A Concluding Note on the Novel and Literary Studies -- Notes -- Index.