To the extent that writing has long been considered a substitute for "living"  conversation, dialogue has been a quintessential metaphor for language as communication. This volume closely analyzes dialogue, both as a literary genre and as a critical principle underlying the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Diderot. In her analysis, the author examines relationships between texts and writers, between texts and readers, and between texts and other texts (intertextuality). Drawing extensively upon deconstructionist critical sources, as well as upon sociological and anthropological explorations of reading and writing, this volume provides valuable insight into the wonderfully complex acts of writing and reading, the "dialogue of writing."

Of interest to students of eighteenth-century French literature, this work is alsoimportant to those interested in contemporary literary criticisms, its theory and practice, as well as to students of Barthes, Derrida, and Beneviste. The volume also presents fascinating applications of the the though of Claude Lévi-Strauss.