Revising Life Through Literature : Scarecrow Press : 9780810857193 : 0810857197 : 06 Apr 2006 : After the Reformation, science superseded both religion and literature as the favored source of knowledge. As people became free of a catechism of rote responses, they found the concept of self-determination both liberating and terrifying. Literature stepped in by providing examples of fictional characters that made choices in circumstances similar to the quandaries faced by readers-situations that could not be easily resolved by scripture alone. As a critical theory, dialogism makes our literary heritage germane. It offers a strategy for readers to improve their immediate lives through literary insights. It also offers a means to employ literary theory to reveal overlooked clues and lingering inhibitions embedded in past literature that can affect the reader's present life. In Revising Life Through Literature: Dialogical Change from the Reformation through Postmodernism, Joyce Brotton cit