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This book updates prosodic theory and integrates it within recent developments in literary criticism. At the core of the study is the assumption that the sound of discourse transfers the text from its silent fictional existence to an independent entity that refers, through its linguistic dialect, to a social context outside the text. This assumption opens up the possibility of moving beyond defining prosodic forms merely according to the number of syllables or feet in a line toward an investigation of larger units and meta-constructions of prosodic elements where form and ideological content are inseparable.