... ; the characters seem to have "lives" independent of the text itself. They, of course, do not; the sense that they do is achieved entirely by the fact that both the author and the reader share these codes of the real. The consensual nature of such codes is so deep that we forget that we are in the presence of fiction. The ... drives toward the final re-establishment of harmony and thus re-assures the reader that the value system of signs and cultural practices which he or she shares with the author is not in danger. The political affiliation of the realist novel is thus evident; in tryin...

• Word Count: 3498
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Graduate

... he was much under the intellectual influence of that great Frenchman who is best known under the name of Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, 1694 1778). Voltaire -was an author of enormous industry; seventy volumes of him adorn the present -writer's shelves, and another edition of Voltaire's works runs to ninety- four; he dealt largely with history and public affairs ... ...

• Word Count: 2009
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Graduate

... a special nostalgic feeling for it. Microbe Hunters recounts, in an alarmingly bubbly tone replete with exclamation marks, the exploits of the early microbiologists: Leeuwenhoek, Pasteur, Koch, Reed, and others. The author, a longtime bacteriologist at the University of Michigan, manages a view of these great small-game hunters that is both hero-worshipful of their achievements and unabashedly gleeful about their human foibles ... ...

• Word Count: 397
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Graduate