Table of Contents

Part 1 The beginning of the "Aeneid": the voice of the Muse and the voice of the poet; polysemous epic; the beginning of the story. Part 2 The "Commedia": intervention - poetic and divine; Dante and Virgil; Chaucer and the "overheard opening". Part 3 "Paradise Lost": Renaissance ego and the rebirth of the Muse; Genesis and the beginning of "Paradise Lost". Part 4 "The Prelude": the retroactive poem; the Muse and the dead self. Part 5 "Tristram Shandy": telling versus explaining; comedy as bodily critique. Part 6 David and Pip: the discarded face; modes of self-reference. Part 7 The sense of a beginning: the idea of a natural beginning; finding the Muse.

Reviews

`This is a subtle account of the relationship between art and ontology. Its gusto, if not always free from self-indulgence, exerts a continuous grip on the reader's attention.'
A Journal of English Language and Literature, Vol 74, No 6 (Dec 1993)
`A. D. Nuttall is among the most erudite of contemporary academic literary critics, at ease with the Classics, much given to philosophy. This, then, is a brilliant book ... there is a dazzling digressiveness and expansiveness, lucubrations of a find critical mind on a subject only apparently rather minute. ... he has developed formidable machinery and uses it with gusto and learning.'
Frank Kermode, London Review of Books
'While it delights in its display of academic erudition, Nuttall's book advances an essentially simple idea, still stimulating after being explored by cultural historians of the calibre of E. H. Gombrich. Nuttall's discourse will not end the debate on the nature of narrative but is certain to open spirited arguments.'
Times Higher Education Supplement
'brilliant book'
London Review of Books
`Nuttall makes useful incidental points about each text he discusses.'
Modern Language Review