Harrison, Bernard. What Is Fiction For? Literary Humanism Restored

One is faced with a complex task when asked to review such a massive and learned work as Bernard Harrison’s What Is Fiction For? The challenge is that of doing justice to the sheer amount of knowledge and insight the author presents in a book that is so sharp and penetrating — and at the same time so vast and multilayered. Harrison is a philosopher, and this book constitutes a philosophical defense of the importance of literature and literary humanism. For Harrison, these concepts are intrinsically connected with a redefinition of the philosophy of language (especially Wittgenstein’s) and a redefinition of the task of the literary critic.