Anagnorisis--recognition--is one of the least familiar terms in Aristotelian poetics, yet it is used to describe one of the most familiar features of drama and narrative fiction. This invaluable study by leading Renaissance scholar Terence Cave is the first to trace the history of the term and to explore its role in French, German, and English literature as a continuing focus for theoretical reflection.

This seminal book examines the interaction of literary practice and theory in 16th-century France in the context of the great Renaissance writers, Erasmus, Rabelais, Ronsard, and Montaigne.