When Is Something Fiction

A twentieth-century “poetics,” this book brilliantly investigates the question of fiction versus nonfiction and the structure of ideas in literary criticism. 

Roberts finds a parallel and overlapping concept-structure behind the word poetry, and suggests that the idea of literature critics have today is a combination of such patterns of meaning. Hence, he finds that the ambiguous terminology of criticism, though often a burden to it is also of great service. 

A striking new kind of criticism, both in its theory and its format, When Is Something Fiction? will prove valuable to literary critics, but it will be of great interest also to philosophers and students of culture.