Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics 2nd Edition (New Accents)

Mark Currie

**About Time** brings together ideas about time from narrative theory and philosophy. It argues that literary criticism and narratology have approached narrative primarily as a form of retrospect, and demonstrates through a series of arguments and readings that anticipation and other forms of projection into the future offer new analytical perspectives to narrative criticism and theory. The book offers an account of 'prolepsis' or 'flashforward' in the contemporary novel which retrieves it from the realm of experimentation and places it at the heart of a contemporary mode of being, both personal and collective, which experiences the present as the object of a future memory. With reference to some of the most important recent developments in the philosophy of time, it aims to define a set of questions about tense and temporal reference in narrative which make it possible to reconsider the function of stories in contemporary culture. It also reopens traditional questions about the difference between literature and philosophy in relation to knowledge of time. In the context of these questions, the book offers analyses of a range of contemporary fiction by writers such as Ali Smith, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Graham Swift. " Lire plus…

Monika Fludernik; Translated From The German By Patricia Häusler-Greenfield And Monika Fludernik

An Introduction to Narratology is an accessible, practical guide to narratological theory and terminology and its application to literature. In this book, Monika Fludernik outlines: the key concepts of style, metaphor and metonymy, and the history of narrative forms narratological approaches to interpretation and the linguistic aspects of texts, including new cognitive developments in the field how students can use narratological theory to work with texts, incorporating detailed practical examples a glossary of useful narrative terms, and suggestions for further reading. This textbook offers a comprehensive overview of the key aspects of narratology by a leading practitioner in the field. It demystifies the subject in a way that is accessible to beginners, but also reflects recent theoretical developments and narratology’s increasing popularity as a critical tool. Lire plus…

Edited By James Phelan And Peter J. Rabinowitz

The 35 original essays in A Companion to Narrative Theory constitute the best available introduction to this vital and contested field of humanistic enquiry. The essays represent all the major critical approaches to narrative – narratological, rhetorical, feminist, post-structuralist, historicist – and investigate and debate the relations among them. In addition, they stretch the boundaries of the field by considering narratives in different disciplines, such as law and medicine, and in a variety of media, including film, music, and painting. The volume is divided into six parts: competing accounts of the history of the field; examinations of recurrent problems; suggestions for theoretical revisions and innovations; explorations of the relations among form, history, politics, and ethics; analyses of the way narrative operates in different disciplines and in media beyond the written word; and speculations about the future of narrative and of narrative theory. At the same time, it offers provocative analyses of a wide range of works, both canonical and popular, from the Bible through novels by Dickens, Woolf, and Arundhati Roy on to Bernard Herrmann’s film music and the action paintings of Jackson Pollock. Among its contributors are many of the leading figures in the field, including such early pioneers as Wayne C. Booth, Seymour Chatman, J. Hillis Miller, and Gerald Prince. Lire plus…

Shlomith Rimmon- Kenan

A synthesis of approaches to narrative fiction, considering Anglo-American New Criticism, Russian Formalism and French Structuralism that formulates the ways readers can, should, and do read narrative fiction. Lire plus…

Gérard Genette; Translated By Jane E.lewin; Foreword By Jonathan Culler

Gerard Genette builds a systematic theory of narrative upon an anlaysis of the writings of Marcel Proust, particularly 'Remembrance of Things Past.' Adopting what is essentially a structuralist approach, the author identifies and names the basic constituents and techniques of narrative and illustrates them by referring to literary works in many languages. Lire plus…

Wayne C. Booth

The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and terms—such as "the implied author," "the postulated reader," and "the unreliable narrator"—have become part of the standard critical lexicon. For this new edition, Wayne C. Booth has written an extensive Afterword in which he clarifies misunderstandings, corrects what he now views as errors, and sets forth his own recent thinking about the rhetoric of fiction. The other new feature is a Supplementary Bibliography, prepared by James Phelan in consultation with the author, which lists the important critical works of the past twenty years—two decades that Booth describes as "the richest in the history of the subject." Lire plus…

Gerald Prince

## Contents vii (1) Roses are red/ Violets are blue/ Sugar is sweet/ And so are you, (2) Roses are red (7) Mary drank a glass of orange juice then she drank a glass of milk and (8) A people on the Columbia had no eyes or mouth. They ate by smelling the sturgeon. Coyote gave them eyes and a mouth as well as Les Trois Mousquetaires, The Secret Agent, or The Peloponnesian War satisfy the definition and, in fact, would generally be considered narrative. On the other hand, (1), Although the term is relatively new, the discipline is not and, in the Western tradition, it goes back at least to Plato and Aristotle. During the twentieth century, narratology has been considerably developed. The last ten or fifteen years, in particular, have witnessed a remarkable growth of narratological activity. The discipline has attracted numerous literary analysts and many linguists, as well as philosophers, psychologists, psychoanalysts, biblicists, semioticians, folklorists, anthropologists, and communication theorists in many parts of the world: Denmark (the 'Copenhagen Group'), France (Barthes, Bremond, Genette, Greimas, Hamon, Kristeva, Todorov, etc.) Germany (Ihwe, Schmidt, etc.), Italy (Eco, Segre), the Netherlands (van Dijk), North America (Chatman, Colby, DoleZel, Dundes, Georges, Hendricks, Labov, Pavel, Scholes, etc.), the U.S.S.R. (Lotman, Toporov, Uspenski, etc.). Narratology examines what all narratives have in common -1. Signs of the Τ Some of these signs may function indirectly.... Lire plus…

Seymour Benjamin Chatman; Seymour Chatman

This book is the first comprehensive approach in English to a general theory of narrative, both in verbal and in visual media. The primary question to which Professor Chatman addresses himself is what narrative is in itself. Following such French structuralists as Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, and Gerard Genette, he posits a what and a way. "The what of narrative," he says, "I call its 'story'; the way, I call its 'discourse.'" Liberally illustrating his concepts with discussions of particular novels and films, he effects a synthesis of the latest Continental critical thinking about narrative and the Anglo-American tradition exemplified by Henry James, Percy Lubbock, Wayne Booth, and others. A judicious and well-informed book, Story and Discourse should become a standard guide to narrative and to modern thinking about narrative. Lire plus…

Seymour Benjamin Chatman; Seymour Chatman

Synthesizing the work of continental critics such as Genette, Todorov, and Barthes, and that of critics in the Anglo-American tradition, such as Lubbock and Booth, Seymour Chatman provides a comprehensive approach to a general theory of narrative, in both verbal and visual media. In this book, he analyzes what narrative is 'in itself.' Lire plus…

By David Herman

Basic Elements of Narrative outlines a way of thinking about what narrative is and how to identify its basic elements across various media, introducing key concepts developed by previous theorists and contributing original ideas to the growing body of scholarship on stories.Includes an overview of recent developments in narrative scholarshipProvides an accessible introduction to key concepts in the fieldViews narrative as a cognitive structure, type of text, and resource for interpersonal communicationUses examples from literature, face to face interaction, graphic novels, and film to explore the core features of narrativeIncludes a glossary of key terms, full bibliography, and comprehensive indexAppropriate for multiple audiences, including students, non-specialists, and experts in the field Lire plus…

Geoffrey Leech, Michael Short

Describes the ways in which the techniques of linguistic analysis and literary criticism can be combined, and illuminated, through the linguistic study of literary style, and draws on the prose fiction of the last 150 years to demonstrate the approach. Lire plus…

Wolf Schmid; Alexander Starritt

This book is a standard work for modern narrative theory. It provides a terminological and theoretical system of reference for future research. The author explains and discusses in detail problems of communication structure and entities of a narrative work, point of view, the relationship between narrator's text and character's text, narrativity and eventfulness, and narrative transformations of happenings. This book outlines a theory of narration and analyses central narratological categories such as fiction, mimesis, author, reader, narrator etc. A detailed bibliography and glossary of narratological terms make this book a compendium of narrative theory which is of relevance for scholars and students of all literary disciplines. Lire plus…

Peter Brooks

A book which should appeal to both literary theorists and to readers of the novel, this study invites the reader to consider how the plot reflects the patterns of human destiny and seeks to impose a new meaning on life. Lire plus…

Robert Scholes, James Phelan, Robert Kellogg, Robert E. Scholes

For the past forty years The Nature of Narrative has been a seminal work for literary students, teachers, writers, and scholars. Countering the tendency to view the novel as the paradigm case of literary narrative, authors Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg in the original edition offered a compelling history of the genre narrative from antiquity to the twentieth-century, even as they carried out their main task of describing and analyzing the nature of narrative's main elements: meaning, character, plot, and point of view. Their history emphasized the broad sweep of literary narrative from ancient times to the contemporary period, and it included a chapter on the oral heritage of written narrative and an appendix on the interior monologue in ancient texts. The fortieth anniversary edition of this groundbreaking work has been revised and expanded to include a new preface and a lengthy chapter on developments in narrative theory since 1966 by James Phelan. This chapter describes the principles and practices of structuralist, cognitive, feminist, and rhetorical approaches to narrative, paying special attention to their work on plot, character, and narrative discourse. A continued leader in the field of narrative studies, The Nature of Narrative offers unique and invaluable histories of both narrative and narrative theory. This analytical study provides a welcome balance to the critical practice of judging all narrative literature by standards appropriate only to the novel. Lire plus…

James Phelan

In Narrative As Rhetoric, James Phelan Explores The Consequences For Narrative Theory Of Two Significant Principles: (1) Narrative Is Rhetoric Because Narrative Occurs When Someone Tells A Particular Story For A Particular Audience In A Particular Situation For Some Particular Purpose(s); (2) The Reading Of Narrative Is A Multidimensional Activity, Simultaneously Engaging Our Intellects, Emotions, Ideologies, And Ethics. The Rhetorical Theory Of Narrative That Emerges From These Investigations Emphasizes The Recursive Relationships Between Authorial Agency, Textual Phenomena, And Reader Response, Even As It Remains Open To Insights From A Range Of Critical Approaches - Including Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Bakhtinian Linguistics, And Cultural Studies. The Rhetorical Criticism Phelan Advocates And Employs Seeks, Above All, To Attend Carefully To The Multiple Demands Of Reading Sophisticated Narrative; For That Reason, His Rhetorical Theory Moves Less Toward Predictions About The Relationships Between Techniques, Ethics, And Ideologies And More Toward Developing Some Principles And Concepts That Allow Us To Recognize The Complex Diversity Of Narrative Art. Written With Clarity And Flair And Experimenting At Times With The Conventions Of Critical Writing, This Collection, Which Includes Some Of Phelan's Best Work, Is Itself Audience Oriented. The Book Includes An Appendix That Is In Part An Experiment With Voice, And It Ends With A Helpful Glossary Of The Technical Vocabulary... Lire plus…

By H. Porter Abbott

This study is designed to help readers understand what narrative is, how it is constructed, how it acts upon us, how we act upon it, how it is transmitted, and how it changes when the medium or the cultural context change. Porter Abbott emphasizes that narrative is found not only in the arts but everywhere in the ordinary course of people's lives. An indispensable tool for students and teachers alike, this book will guide readers through the fundamental aspects of narrative. Lire plus…

James Phelan

In __Experiencing Fiction,__ James Phelan develops a provocative and engaging affirmative answer to the question, “Can we experience narrative fiction in similar ways?” Phelan grounds that answer in two elements of narrative located at the intersection between authorial design and reader response: judgments and progressions. Phelan contends that focusing on the three main kinds of judgment—interpretive, ethical, and aesthetic—and on the principles underlying a narrative’s movement from beginning to end reveals the experience of reading fiction to be potentially sharable. In Part One, Phelan skillfully analyzes progressions and judgments in narratives with a high degree of narrativity: Jane Austen’s __Persuasion__, Toni Morrison’s __Beloved__, Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever,” and Ian McEwan’s __Atonement__. In Part Two, Phelan turns his attention to the different relationships between judgments and progressions in hybrid forms—in the lyric narratives of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” Sandra Cisneros’s “Woman Hollering Creek,” and Robert Frost’s “Home Burial,” and in the portrait narratives of Alice Munro’s “Prue” and Ann Beattie’s “Janus.” More generally, Phelan moves back and forth between the exploration of theoretical principles and the detailed work of interpretation. As a result, __Experiencing Fiction__ combines Phelan’s fresh and compelling readings of numerous innovative narratives with his fullest articulation of the rhetorical theory of narrative. Lire plus…