Beginnings: Intention and Method.

London: Granta Books, 1997. 1st U.K. ed.. Paperback thick octavo, very good condition, pages faintly toned, minor edgewear. 416 pp. Edward W. Said brings together history, philosophy, structuralism and critical theory in a stimulating work of literary criticism. The author argues that during the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel was the major attempt in Western literary culture to give beginnings an authorizing, institutional and specialized role in art, experience and knowledge. He traces this idea through the late 19th and early 20th centuries - to Freud's discoveries and the novels of modernist authors - and examines the question of beginnings in critical discourse, and the work of the French structuralists. He combines philosophy and belles-lettres, and does not separate literature from history, philosophy and social discourse, thereby broadening the role of criticism from celebration and orthodoxy to re-experiencing and questioning.