Pramod K. Nayar teaches at the Department of English, the University of Hyderabad, India. His most recent books include Digital Cool: Life in the Age of New Media (Orient BlackSwan 2012), Colonial Voices: The Discourses of Empire (2012), Writing Wrongs: The Cultural Construction of Human Rights in India (2012), States of Sentiment: Exploring the Cultures of Emotion (Orient BlackSwan 2011), Postcolonialism (2010) and Packaging Life: Cultures of the Everyday (2009). He is also the editor of English Poetry 1660–1780: An Anthology (EFL-U and Orient BlackSwan 2010), English Poetry from the Elizabethans to the Restoration: An Anthology (Orient BlackSwan 2012) and the forthcoming English Romantic Poetry: An Anthology (Orient BlackSwan). When tired of the very literary, he also publishes essays on superhero comics.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
FICTION
1. The Grounds of Narrative: Story and Plot
On Narrative
Plot
Other Plots
The Centrality of Narrative
2. Faces and Figures: Character and Characterisation
Characterisation: Methods and Techniques
      Telling
      Showing
      Speech
Action
Types of Characters
Flat and Round Characters
Stock Characters
Major and Minor Characters
Characters as Actants
Stereotypes
3. Narrative Vantage: Point of View
T he Narrator, the Narratee, the Implied Author and the Implied Reader
Three Types of Narrators and Narratives
Reliable and Unreliable Narrators
Narrative Levels
4. Locations and Locales: Setting
Setting 1: Place and Landscape
Place, Setting and its Dimensions
Atmosphere
Historical Setting
Social Setting
Setting 2: Time
Order
Duration or Speed
Frequency
POETRY
5. Turns of Speech: Voice and Tone
Voice and Persona
T one, Mood, Attitude
Hyperbole
Meiosis (Understatement)
Irony
6. The Order of Words: Diction, Rhythm, Rhyme
Diction: Denotation and Connotation
Syntax
Rhythm
Stresses
Pauses
Meter
Rhyme
Formal Patterns
7. Something More, Something Else: Imagery, Symbolism, Allegory
Imagery
Symbolism
Allegory
8. Must We Mean What We Say? Figurative Language
Personification and Apostrophe
Personification
Apostrophe
Similes
Metaphors
Synecdoche
Metonymy

Afterword
References
Index