Real Toads in Imaginary Gardens

Book info: Real Toads in Imaginary Gardens (Hardcover, 160 pages) – Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1994. Language: English.

Maureen Whitebrook argues that literature, through both its form and its content, can expose and criticize liberal theory and point beyond it to a new political theory. She describes how 'literary political criticism' might be done, and demonstrates such criticism in four essays that expose the connections between specific political and literary texts. Fiction, Whitebrook concludes, does a better job than liberal political theory of examining the relationship between the individual and the State. Editorial Reviews Review I have never encountered a finer—more eloquent, more informed, and more convincing—argument for fiction as a vehicle of political understanding. The argument is immediately confirmed by a series of impressive demonstrations, in the form of considerations of various authors' treatments of liberal ideas and themes. (Sigelman, Lee)

A deeply thoughtful and subtle new approach to the interdependence of literature and liberal political theory. (Bernard Crick)

Whitebrook presents a compelling argument for political theorists . . . and provokes much thought about the relationship between polotics and literature. Her book will therefore be of great interest to political and literary theorists alike. (Political Studies)

In Real Toads in Imaginary Gardens: Narrative Accounts of Liberalism, Maureen Whitebrook clearly demonstrates the value of using literary texts for understanding political ideas. Her analyses of Hemlock and After, The Old Men at the Zoo, The Princess Casamassima, and Nostromo are valuable analyses of the text as well as useful illustrations of her contribution to liberal theory. (Lyman Tower Sargent) About the Author Maureen Whitebrook is honorary research fellow of political science at the University of Sheffield and the editor of Reading Political Stories: Representations of Politics in Novels and Pictures (Rowman & Littlefield, 1991).