Originally published, 1987.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: dialectical method in literary history -- pt. 1. Questions of Truth: Chapter one,The destabilization of generic categories: "Romance" as a simple abstraction -- Precursor revolutions: the Greek Enlightenment -- Precursor revolutions: the twelfth-century renaissance -- Historicism and the historical revolution -- The claim to historicity -- Naive Empiricism and extreme skepticism -- Romance, antiromance, true history --
Chapter Two,The evidence of the senses: secularization and epistemological crisis: The contradictory unity of the new philosophy -- "Natural history" as a narrative model -- "Religion versus science" and the problem of mediation -- The literalizing of revelation -- Apparition narratives -- Chapter Three, Histories of the individual: From saint's life to spiritual biography -- From picaresque to criminal biography -- From Christian pilgrimmage to scientific travel -- The empirical style becomes problematic --
The emergence of extreme skepticism -- Toward realism, the aesthetic, and human creativity -- Pt. 2. Questions of virtue: Chapter Four, The destabilization of social categories: Aristocratic ideology -- Precursor revolutions: the Greek Enlightenment -- Precursor revolutions: the twelfth-century renaissance -- Progressive ideology and the transvaluation of honor -- The rise of the gentry -- From status to class --
The persistence of the aristocracy -- The formation of conservative ideology -- Understanding status inconsistency -- Chapter Five, Absolutism and capitalist ideology: the volatility of reform: The absolute prince absolutized -- Sword and robe --
Protestants and capitalists -- Evaluating human appetites --
Progressive ideology and conservative ideology -- Chapter Six, Stories of virtue: Novelistic narrative as historical explanation --
Historical models for progressive narratives -- Historical models for conservative narratives -- Ideological implications of generic models -- The gendering of ideology -- The conflation of truth and virtue -- pt. 3. The dialectical constitution of the novel: Chapter 7 Romance transformations (I): Cervantes and the disenchantment of the world -- Chapter 8 Romance transformations (II): Bunyan and the literalization of allegory --
Chapter 9 Parables of the younger son (I): Defoe and the naturalization of desire -- Chapter 10 Parables of the younger son (II): Swift and the containment of desire -- Chapter 11
The institutionalization of conflict (I): Richardson and the domestication of service -- Chapter 12 The institutionalization of conflict (II): fielding and the instrumentality of belief.