Description
Book SynopsisHow and why do readers attribute an ethos (of, for example, sincerity, reliability, authority, or irony) to literary characters, narrators, and even to authors? Are there particular conditions under which it is more appropriate for interpreters to attribute an ethos to authors, rather than to narrators? This book proposes to such questions.
Trade Review"
Ethos and Narrative Interpretation . . . succeeds in presenting a type of narrative reading that opens new directions, while never forgetting to have a new close look at the basic issues of the discipline."—Jan Baetens,
Leonardo Reviews"I can highly recommend
Ethos and Narrative Interpretation to experienced researchers in the fields of narratology and hermeneutics, and also to scholars who are interested in thinking about the place of literary studies in today’s society: the book provides a number of very convincing answers to the important question of why study literature."—Jan Alber,
Style“With its emphasis on ethos and the negotiation of values, this book will have a lasting impact on the way in which narratology redefines its core concerns. By grounding her argument in rhetoric, Korthals Altes offers a methodological alternative to text-oriented readings, while her insistence on the importance of values adds a new dimension to existing rhetorical approaches in narratology.”—Roy Sommer, author of Literature and Memory
Table of ContentsPrefaceWhy Ethos?
Part 1. Ethos, Narrative, and the Social Construction of Meanings and Values1. Literary Interpretation, Ethos Attributions, and the Negotiation of Values in Culture2. Ethos as a Social Construction: Authorial Posturing, Conceptions of Literature, and Value Regimes
Part 2. Ethos in Narratology: The Return of the Repressed3. Narratology between Hermeneutics and Cognitive Science4. Key Concepts Revised: Narrative and Communication, Embeddedness, Intentionality, Fictionality, and Reading Strategies5. Whose Ethos? Characters, Narrators, Authors, and Unadopted Discourse
Part 3. Further Explorations: Contracts and Ethos Expectations6. Generic Framing and Authorial Ethos7. Sincerity and Other IroniesOn Narrative, Ethos, and Ethics
NotesWorks CitedIndex
