Pronde's the critical framework to examine several major works including, Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Invisible man by Ralph Ellison, and Mumbo jumbo by Ishmael Reed.
This classic work explores the vast differences between oral and literate cultures offering a very clear account of the intellectual, literary and social effects of writing, print and electronic technology.
The goal of this book is to overcome some of the widespread misunderstandings about the meaning of a Darwinian approach to the human mind generally, and literature specifically.
He argues that 'good reading', like moral action or religious experience, involves surrender to the work in hand and a process of entering fully into the opinions of others.
A classic description of the interworkings of social conditions changing attitudes, and literary practices during the period when the novel emerged as the dominant literary form of the individualist era.