Marshaling current research in philosophy, psychology, theology, and linguistics, Heidt's challenging study focuses on the rhetorical process of intentionality as it is represented in literature. Offering a new, multi-disciplinary approach to the question, Heidt searches texts for linguistic/rhetorical elements independent of reader and author yet supporting intentional truths. The first part of the argument locates the question within contemporary biological, philosophical, psychological, and theological discourse. In the second part, Heidt offers a close reading of narratives by De Quincey, Chaucer, Graham Greene, and Fielding and presents physiological, behavioral as well as linguistic evidence of a formation of intention in the texts. A careful demonstration of the rhetorical character of intention, A Rhetoric for a Formation of Intention will prove thought-provoking reading for all scholars interested in discursive practice, in sciences as well as in the humanities.