Tropics of Discourse develops White's ideas on interpretation in history, on the relationship between history and the novel, and on history and historicism. Vico, Croce, Derrida, and Foucault are among the figures he assesses in this work, which also offers original interpretations of a number of literary themes, including the Wild Man and the Noble Savage. White's commentary ranges from a reappraisal of Enlightenment history to a reflective summary of the current state of literary criticism.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Tropology, Discourse, and the Modes of Human Consciousness
Chapter 1. The Burden of History
Chapter 2. Interpretation in History
Chapter 3. The Historical Text as Literary Artifact
Chapter 4. Historicism, History, and the Figurative Imagination
Chapter 5. The Fictions of Factual Representation
Chapter 6. The Irrational and the Problem of Historical Knowledge in the Enlightenment
Chapter 7. The Forms of Wildness: Archaeology of an Idea
Chapter 8. The Noble Savage Theme as Fetish
Chapter 9. The Tropics of History: The Deep Structure of the New Science
Chapter 10. What is Living and What is Dead in Croce's Criticism of Vico
Chapter 11. Foucault Decoded: Notes from Underground
Chapter 12. The Absurdist Moment in Contemporary Literary Theory
Index
