French Literature Reviews - 2026
Ç. Akdere et Chr. Baron, Economics and Literature, A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Review published in the critical dossier of Acta Fabula "Inventing the Economy" (October 2022, Vol. 23, no. 8): "Theoretical Stakes of Money in the Novel" by Dorothée Picon.
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Since the Middle Ages, literature has portrayed the economic world in poetry, drama, stories and novels. The complexity of human realities highlights crucial aspects of the economy. The nexus linking characters to their economic environment is central in a new genre, the "economic novel", that puts forth economic choices and events to narrate social behavior, individual desires, and even non-economic decisions. For many authors, literary narration also offers a means to express critical viewpoints about economic development, for example in regard to its ecological or social ramifications.
Conflicts of economic interest have social, political and moral causes and consequences. This book shows how economic and literary texts deal with similar subjects, and explores the ways in which economic ideas and metaphors shape literary texts, focusing on the analogies between economic theories and narrative structure in literature and drama. This volume also suggests that connecting literature and economics can help us find a common language to voice new, critical perspectives on crises and social change.
Written by an impressive array of experts in their fields, Economics and Literature is an important read for those who study the history of economic thought, economic theory and philosophy, as well as literary and critical theory.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction and Overview
ÇINLA AKDERE AND CHRISTINE BARON AND BRUNA INGRAO
Part I
Passions and Interest: A Comparative Study of Economic Texts and Literary Masterpieces
2 Narratives of passions and finance in the 19th century
BRUNA INGRAO
3 The passions and the interests: the Sentimental Education of Gustave Flaubert
ALPHONSO SANCHEZ
4 Literature and Political Economy: Saint-Simon and Jean-Baptiste Say’s writings
GILLES JACOUD
5 Which Economic Agent Does Robinson Crusoe Represent?
CLAIRE PIGNOL
6 Political Economy and utilitarianism in Dickens' Hard Times
NATHALIE SIGOT AND ÇINLA AKDERE
PART II
Economic Ideas and Metaphors in Literature: An Interdisciplinary Approach
7 Concordances and dissidences between economy and literature
JEAN-JOSEPH GOUX
8 Economics and monetary imagination in André Gide's The Counterfeiters
ÇINLA AKDERE AND CHRISTINE BARON
9 ‘I Always Wanted to Have Earned My First Dollar but I Never Had’: Gertrude Stein and Money
LAURA E. B. KEY
10 Georges Perec’s Les Choses as the Privileged Domain of Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers
EYÜP ÖZVEREN
PART III
Facing change: reflections of economic development and crises in historical and literary texts
11 Transforming Economic and Social Relations: Modern Economy in Novels of Uşaklıgil
REYHAN TUTUMLU SERDAR AND ALI SERDAR
12 Mechanization Experience in Agriculture in Turkey: The Pomegranate on the Knoll
SELİN SEÇİL AKIN AND IŞIL ŞİRİN SELÇUK
13 An Intertextual Analysis of the Village Novels by Village Institute Graduates: Socio-economic Scenes of the Turkish Village between 1950 and 1980
ESRA ELİF NARTOK
14 Theatre in Crisis, Theatre of Crisis: Economics and Contemporary Drama
The intersection of economic thought and literary representation has long occupied scholars examining how texts reflect societal changes. Works in this interdisciplinary field frequently investigate the ways narrative forms engage with financial systems, material conditions, and human desires across various historical periods. By analyzing shared motifs and conceptual overlaps, researchers trace how imaginative writing and political economy address common questions regarding human behavior, social organization, and moral conflict. Such studies often draw on diverse traditions in literary criticism and the history of economic ideas to illuminate the complex relationships connecting creative expression to material realities.
This volume gathers contributions examining how economic and literary texts address similar subjects, exploring analogies between economic theories and narrative structures in literature and drama. The chapters investigate topics ranging from nineteenth-century realism and modernist fiction to contemporary drama and regional traditions. Readers interested in the history of economic thought, economic theory, and literary criticism may find these comparative perspectives relevant to their studies. The essays collectively suggest that connecting literature and economics can help articulate new, critical viewpoints concerning periods of crisis and social transformation.