Postmodern Narrative Theory

by Currie, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780230249363
• ISBN10: 0230249361
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-15
• Publisher: Red Globe Pr

Summary

How have developments in literary and cultural theory transformed our understanding of narrative? What has happened to narrative in the wake of poststructuralism? What is the role and function of narrative in the contemporary world? In this revised, updated and expanded new edition of an established text, Mark Currie explores these central questions and guides students through the complex theories that have shaped the study of narrative in recent decades.Postmodern Narrative Theory, Second Edition: Establishes direct links between the workings of fictional narratives and those of the non-fictional world Charts the transition in narrative theory from its formalist beginnings, through deconstruction, towards its current concerns with the social, cultural and cognitive uses of narrative Explores the relationship between postmodern narrative and postmodern theory more closely Presents detailed illustrative readings of known literary texts such as Stevenson'sDr Jekyll and Mr Hydeand Conrad'sHeart of Darkness, and now features a new chapter on Coetzee'sElizabeth Costello and Slow Man. Approachable and stimulating, this is an essential introduction for anyone studying postmodernism, the theory of narrative or contemporary fiction.

Author Biography

Mark Currie is Professor of Contemporary Literature at Queen Mary, University of London, UK.

Table of Contents

General Editor's Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xii
Introduction	p. 1
What is a postmodern narrative?	p. 1
Narratology, death and afterlife	p. 5
Diversification, deconstruction, politicisation	p. 5
Models for narratological change	p. 10
Poststructuralist or postclassical narratology	p. 18
Lost Objects
The Manufacture of Identities	p. 25
Voice, distance and judgement	p. 27
Formalism and ideology	p. 31
From point of view to positionality	p. 35
Terminologisation	p. 41
Theoretical Fiction	p. 58
Criticism as fiction	p. 61
Fiction as criticism	p. 68
Narrative Time and Space
Narrative, Politics and History	p. 79
Narrative and time	p. 82
Narrative and exclusion	p. 85
Textuality and history	p. 92
Nations and narrations	p. 96
Culture and Schizophrenia	p. 100
Accelerated recontextualisation	p. 100
Time-space compression	p. 105
Narratives grand and little	p. 110
Narrative Subjects
True Lies: Unreliable Identities in	p. 119
Inner distance	p. 120
Narrative shipwreck	p. 123
Writing and seeing	p. 128
Self-conscious self-consciousness	p. 132
The Dark Clouds of Enlightenment: Socio-Narratology and Heart of Darkness	p. 136
Postmodern Narrative Theory Reading Postmodern Narrative: Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello and Slow Man	p. 152
The opinions of Elizabeth Costello	p. 155
Metalepsis in Slow Man	p. 164
The predicament of the postmodern reader	p. 171
Annotated Bibliography	p. 178
Bibliography	p. 186
Index	p. 194
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