Description
Book SynopsisStories are everywhere, from fiction across media to politics and personal identity. Handbook of Narrative Analysis sorts out both traditional and recent narrative theories, providing the necessary skills to interpret any story. In addition to discussing classical theorists, such as Gérard Genette, Mieke Bal, and Seymour Chatman, Handbook of Narrative Analysispresents precursors (such as E. M. Forster), related theorists (Franz Stanzel, Dorrit Cohn), and a large variety of postclassical critics. Among the latter particular attention is paid to rhetorical, cognitive, and cultural approaches; intermediality; storyworlds; gender theory; and natural and unnatural narratology.
Not content to consider theory as an end in itself, Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck use two short stories and a graphic narrative by contemporary authors as touchstones to illustrate each approach to narrative. In doing so they illuminate the practical implications of theoretical pre
Trade Review
“A comprehensive and coherent account of narratology, [Handbook of Narrative Analysis] is engaging and readable and explicitly oriented toward the reader’s experience.”—Sabine Gross, Monatshefte
"This handbook is successful in its efforts to distill complex concepts of narratology for a beginner in the field without over-simplifying or misrepresenting the information. . . . It would make a useful tool in a classroom for upper-level undergraduates or graduate students who are in the early stages of exploring narratology. Similarly, it is an excellent touchstone for researchers more comfortable with narratological thought and who simply need a reference book at hand. It certainly holds value in the field of narratological research and for academics at varying levels of their career."—Sarah N. Lawson, Journal of Folklore Research
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Traditional Questions
2. New Questions
Chapter 1. Before and Surrounding Structuralism
1. Story and Plot
2. Telling and Showing
3. Author and Narrator
4. Narrator and Reader
5. Consciousness and Speech
6. Perception and Speech
Chapter 2. Structuralism
1. Story
1.1. Events
1.2. Actants
1.3. Setting
2. Narrative
2.1. Time
2.2. Character
2.3. Focalization
3. Narration
3.1. Narrating
3.2. Consciousness Representation
Chapter 3. Postclassical Narratology
1. Broadening Conceptions of the Narrative Text
1.1. Broadening the Medium: Intermedial Narratology
1.2. Broadening in Time: Diachronic Narratology
1.3. Broadening the Fictional World
2. Communicative Approaches
2.1. Rhetorical Narratology
2.2. Cognitive Narratology
3. Narratology and Ideology
3.1. Narrative Ethics
3.2. Feminist and Queer Narratology
3.3. Postcolonial Narratology
3.4. Cultural Narratology and Socio-narratology
3.4.1. Socio-narratology
3.4.2. Cultural Narratology
4. Everyday Life as a Narrative Process
4.1. Postmodern Narratology
4.2. Natural Narratology
4.3. Unnatural Narratology
Appendix A: “Pegasian”
Charlotte Mutsaers
Appendix B: “The Map”
Gerrit Krol
Appendix C: “City”
Wasco
Notes
Bibliography
Index
