Author: Li-fen Chen Publisher: Universal-Publishers ISBN: 1581120826 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 178
Book Description
This dissertation is an attempt to define a Chinese "modernism," exemplified by the narrative practices of four major writers in Taiwan today, from the perspective of comparative literature and recent development of literary theory. I propose that modernity of Taiwanese fiction is not so much a result of Western influences as an evolution of Chinese narrative tradition itself. To argue my point I delineate a poetics of Chinese narrative, from which I devise a method of reading and a criterion of evaluation for contemporary Taiwanese fiction in defining its achievement and historical significance. This study of Taiwanese fiction also aims at providing a better understanding of fundamental aesthetic assumptions of Western "modernism" in the context of its own literary tradition. Chapter One, "Introduction," investigates the theoretical foundation and its line of development in Western and Chinese poetics respectively. It first examines the Platonic view of mimesis and Aristotelian aesthetic view of fictionality and their influence on the critical tradition, the continuity of the ancient battle between philosophy and poetry as seen in the structuralist and deconstructionist theories, then the relationship between subjective fictionality and ironic objectivity in Chinese poetics, the continuity of the dilemma in the Chinese novelists in their dual allegiance to the ideal and the real. A final section gives a critical overview of the literary scene in Taiwan. The following four chapters provide examples of the internal tension between fictionality and ironic awareness in the Taiwanese modernist texts. I suggest that instead of stretching the metaphorical potential of fiction to a highly intellectualized abstraction or playing down the interpretive claims of fiction by dramatizing its vulnerability like their Western counterpart, the Taiwanese modernists create their texts on the borderline between the high and the low. Self-assertive as well as self-denying, each of them confronts his own intellectual vision with paradox and ambivalence. In Ch'en Ying-chen, this is expressed as a battle between a lyrical vision of ideological values and an instinctive self-clowning, in Ch'i-teng Sheng, as a form of competition between pattern and contingency, in Wang Chen-ho, as a celebration and abuse of the fictionality of fiction, and in Wang Wen-hsing, an intense self-parody. I conclude that the sensitivity to the irrational and contradiction, inherent with a resistance to didacticism, constitutes the best part of the Chinese humanistic tradition, which is continuously enriched with new dimensions by the contemporary Taiwanese writers.
Author: Calin Andrei Mihailescu Publisher: ISBN: Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
"Novels, movies, and lies - these are all fictions that provoke with their as ifs and what ifs. In response to the idea that fiction has somehow become an unfashionable topic in contemporary criticism, this volume argues that the question of fiction needs to be updated in the absence of a widely accepted theory of truth. This collection, dedicated to the noted scholar and literary critic Lubomir Dolezel, covers an extensive number of theoretical and historical issues relevant to our understanding of the status of fictions - literary or not." "Fiction Updated offers approaches to fiction and poetics that, in an imaginary topography of contemporary humanities, dwell at a distance from both the mimetic theory of literature and deconstruction. The contributors introduce new perspectives to the problem of fictionality, or broaden the scope of its applications, by examining the works of such authors as Homer, Casanova, Aristotle, Woolf, Vaihinger, Borges, Kundera, Coetzee, and Bakhtin."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Richard Walsh Publisher: ISBN: Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
Narrative theory has always been centrally concerned with fiction, yet it has tended to treat fictions as if they were merely the framed or disowned equivalents of nonfictional narratives. A rhetorical perspective upon fictionality, however, sees it as a direct way of meaning and a distinct kind of communicative gesture. The Rhetoric of Fictionality : Narrative Theory and the Idea of Fiction by Richard Walsh argues the merit of such a perspective and demonstrates its radical implications for narrative theory. A new conception of fictionality as a distinctive rhetorical resource, somewhat like the master-trope of fictional narrative, cuts across many of the core theoretical issues in the field. The model, set out in chapter one, is subsequently tested and elaborated in relation to currently prevalent assumptions about narrativity and mimesis ; narrative structure ; the narrator and transmission ; voice and mediacy ; narrative media and cognition ; and creativity, reception, and involvement. Throughout, the theoretical analysis seeks to vindicate readers' intuitions about fiction without merely restating them : the result is a forceful challenge to many of narrative theory's orthodoxies. The rhetorical model of fictionality advanced in this book offers up new areas of inquiry into the purchase of fictiveness itself upon questions of narrative interpretation. It urges a fundamental reconception of the apparatus of narrative theory by theorizing the conditions of significance that make fictions conceivable and worthwhile.
Author: Ignasi Ribó Publisher: Open Book Publishers ISBN: 1783748125 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 122
Book Description
This concise and highly accessible textbook outlines the principles and techniques of storytelling. It is intended as a high-school and college-level introduction to the central concepts of narrative theory – concepts that will aid students in developing their competence not only in analysing and interpreting short stories and novels, but also in writing them. This textbook prioritises clarity over intricacy of theory, equipping its readers with the necessary tools to embark on further study of literature, literary theory and creative writing. Building on a ‘semiotic model of narrative,’ it is structured around the key elements of narratological theory, with chapters on plot, setting, characterisation, and narration, as well as on language and theme – elements which are underrepresented in existing textbooks on narrative theory. The chapter on language constitutes essential reading for those students unfamiliar with rhetoric, while the chapter on theme draws together significant perspectives from contemporary critical theory (including feminism and postcolonialism). This textbook is engaging and easily navigable, with key concepts highlighted and clearly explained, both in the text and in a full glossary located at the end of the book. Throughout the textbook the reader is aided by diagrams, images, quotes from prominent theorists, and instructive examples from classical and popular short stories and novels (such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis,’ J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, or Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, amongst many others). Prose Fiction: An Introduction to the Semiotics of Narrative can either be incorporated as the main textbook into a wider syllabus on narrative theory and creative writing, or it can be used as a supplementary reference book for readers interested in narrative fiction. The textbook is a must-read for beginning students of narratology, especially those with no or limited prior experience in this area. It is of especial relevance to English and Humanities major students in Asia, for whom it was conceived and written.
Author: Silke Braselmann Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG ISBN: 3110647621 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 690
Book Description
Ever since the 1990s, school shootings have shocked the public in their brutality, their suddenness, and their inexplicability. While film and literature have played a role in the heated debates about so-called copycat crimes, the growing body of fictionalizations of school shootings has been neglected thus far. However, in a discourse in which the boundaries between fiction and reality are increasingly blurred, this book shows how fiction shapes and structures, challenges and disrupts cultural processes of meaning-making. Hence, for a better understanding of the school shooting phenomenon, the relevance of fiction on all levels of discourse construction requires thorough analysis. This book therefore develops a new approach to the role of fiction for contemporary forms of excessive violence. By combining narrative theory with insights from sociology and other disciplines, it provides the means for apprehending and describing the relevance of fiction for contemporary discourses. Furthermore, it provides exemplary analyses of more specific functions of literary and filmic fictionalizations of school shootings between 2000 and 2016.
Author: Seymour Chatman Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501741616 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 279
Book Description
"For the specialist in the study of narrative structure, this is a solid and very perceptive exploration of the issues salient to the telling of a story—whatever the medium. Chatman, whose approach here is at once dualist and structuralist, divides his subject into the 'what' of the narrative (Story) and the 'way' (Discourse)... Chatman's command of his material is impressive."—Library Journal
Author: Erika Fülöp Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG ISBN: 3110722038 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
Concerned with the nature of the medium and the borders between fact and fiction, reflexivity was a ubiquitous feature of modernist and postmodernist literature and film. While in the wake of the post-postmodern “return to the real” cultural criticism has little time for discussions of reflexivity, it remains a key topic in narratology, as does fictionality. The latter is commonly defined opposition to the real and the factual, but remains conditioned by historical, cultural, discursive, and medium-related factors. Reflexivity blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction, however, by giving fiction a factual edge or by questioning the limits of factuality in non-fictional discourses. Fictionality, factuality, and reflexivity thus constitute a complex triangle of concepts, yet they are rarely considered together. This volume fills this gap by exploring the intricacies of their interactions and interdependence in philosophy, literature, film, and digital media, providing insights into a broad range of their manifestations from the ancient times to today, from East Asia through Europe to the Americas.
Author: Hans J. Lind Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 0429887612 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 235
Book Description
Drawing on insights from literary theory and analytical philosophy, this book analyzes the intersection of law and literature from the distinct and unique perspective of fictional discourse. Pursuing an empirical approach, and using examples that range from Victorian literature to the current judicial treatment of rap music, the volume challenges the prevailing fact–fiction dichotomy in legal theory and practice by providing a better understanding of the peculiarities of legal fictionality, while also contributing further material to fictional theory’s endeavor to find a transdisciplinary valid criterion for a definition of fictional discourse. Following the basic presumptions of the early law-as-literature movement, past approaches have mainly focused on textuality and narrativity as the common denominators of law and literature, and have largely ignored the topic of fictionality. This volume provides a much needed analysis of this gap. The book will be of interest to scholars of legal theory, jurisprudence and legal writing, along with literature scholars and students of literature and the humanities.
Author: Li-fen Chen
Author: Calin Andrei Mihailescu
Author: Richard Walsh
Author: Patrick O'Neill
Author: Ignasi Ribó
Author: Silke Braselmann
Author: Seymour Chatman
Author: Subramani
Author: Erika Fülöp
Author: Hans J. Lind