SOURCE: A review of The World Within the Word, in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4, Winter, 1979-1980, pp. 757-58.

In the following favorable review of The World Within the Word, Schneider discusses Gass's critical views on literature.

Following close on the heels of John Gardner's On Moral Fiction, William Gass's second collection of essays seems almost a counter-attack. To Gardner's call for fiction of moral concern, Gass replies that “Poetry [which for Gass usually includes fiction and essays] is not a kind of communication, but a construction in consciousness.” On the thread of this premise, Gass strings essays about an impressively eclectic range of topics, including suicide, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and linguistics as well as literature.

Gass begins by stripping the reader of two widespread misconceptions about what “poetry” is. In several essays on death and suicide, Gass reminds us that literature is not the cathartic escape from...