The Ethics of Literary Communication -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Dedication page -- Table of contents -- Acknowledgements -- Contributors -- 1. Introduction -- 1. Interdisciplinary aims -- 2. Literature and communicational ethics -- 3. Main findings -- 4. In conclusion -- References -- 2. Herbert's considerateness: A communicational assessment -- References -- 3. "Not my readers but the readers of their own selves": Literature as communication with the self i -- 1. The Narrator's stated aim -- 2. 'Literature', 'self', 'message' -- 3. "It seemed to me that I myself was what the book was talking about" -- References -- 4. Intersubjective positioning and community-making: E. E. Cummings's Preface to his Collected Poems -- 1. Targeting and creating a literary audience -- 2. Theoretical background -- 3. Courtship -- 4. Commandeering -- 5. Real readers and dialogical response -- References -- 5. Genuine and distorted communication in autobiographical writing: E. M. Forster's "West Hackhurst" -- 1. An undervalued text? -- 2. Genesis, structure and first impressions -- 3. The Memoir Club as a literary site -- 4. Literary artistry in autobiographical writing -- 5. An honest portrait of communicational failure -- 6. Conclusion: Bigger than it seems -- References -- 6. Women and the public sphere: Pope's addressivity through The Dunciad -- 1. Introduction -- 2. A personal address and its consequences -- 3. Comparing notes about communication -- 4. Impolite genuineness -- References -- 7. Kipling, his narrator, and public interest -- 1. The narrator in the stories -- 2. Kipling in the autobiography -- 3. A community founded on public interest -- References -- 8. Call and response: Autonomy and dialogicity in Isaac Bashevis Singer's The Penitent -- 1. The narrative framework and communicational ethics -- 2. Religion and literature.

3. From Socrates to Aristotle -- References -- 9. Hypothetical action: Poetry under erasure in Blake, Dickinson and Eliot -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Blake's "The Tyger": The act of creation questioned -- 3. Meeting apart in Emily Dickinson's "I cannot live with You" -- 4. Prufrock's imaginary walk: Recurrent and local techniques -- 5. Conclusion -- References -- Appendix 1 -- Appendix 2 -- 10. Metacommunication as ritual: Contemporary Romanian poetry -- 1. Introduction -- 2. A framework for poetic (meta)communication -- 3. Communicational pathology and cultural resistance -- 4. Literary resistance -- 5. Patterns of response to totalitarian discourse -- 6. Conclusions -- References -- Appendix -- 11. Terminal aposiopesis and sublime communication: Shakespeare's Sonnet 126 and Keats's "To Autumn" -- 1. "The vice of writing" -- 2. Terminal aposiopesis and its triple challenge -- 3. Two cases in point -- 4. Absolute sublimity and contextless communication -- References -- 12. The utopian horizon of communication: Ernst Bloch's Traces and Johann-Peter Hebel's Treasure Che -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Literature as communication -- 3. Bloch: Traces of the ultimate -- 4. The "we-problem" -- 5. Johann-Peter Hebel: The calendar story as a place of openness -- 6. Conclusion -- References -- 13. When philosophy must become literature: Søren Kierkegaard's concept of indirect communication -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Schlegel's concept of transcendental poetry -- 3. Indirect communication and the existential dilemma -- 4. Either/Or as indirect communication -- References -- 14. An aesthetics of indirection in novels and letters: Balzac's communication with Evelina Hanska -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Novels as messengers -- 3. Epistolary communication within novels -- 4. Letters as imitating literature -- 5. Balzac's devalorization of the glance or gaze.

6. The correspondent as pretext? -- References -- 15. Letters from a (post-)troubled city: Epistolary communication in Ciaran Carson's The Pen Friend -- 1. Moving onwards from the Troubles -- 2. Communication and material objects -- 3. Gabriel's (non-)communication with Nina -- 4. Virtual communities -- 5. Author-reader communication in The Pen Friend -- 6. Genuiness in action -- References -- Index.