Eloquent Reticence: Withholding Information in Fictional Narrative : The University Press of Kentucky : 9780813155166 : 0813155169 : 15 Jul 2014 : The importance of the ethics of form in literature has only recently gained broad recognition and has thus far been explored mainly from the position of moral philosophy and critical theory. Leona Toker develops a narratological approach to the subject, based on studying "reticence" in works of fiction. Reticence consists in narrative techniques through which writers create information gaps that build interest, enhance tension, and control the reader's comprehension of theme, character, and event. Using novels by Fielding, Austen, Dickens, Conrad, Forster, and Faulkner, Toker demonstrates how the withholding of information affects readers' attitudes, stimulates their reassessment, and leads to a self-critical reorientation?and how such manipulation of attention has specific ethical and aesthetic significance. Drawing on descriptive poetics