Description
Book SynopsisFor 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 p
Trade ReviewA pioneer venture into one of the richest areas in literature, this volume is worthy of comparison with the classic studies of Harry Levin and René Wellek. * Modern Language Journal (review from previous edition) *
Attempts to put the novel in its place, to see it as only one of a number of narrative possibilities. The authors survey all kinds of narrative forms, written and unwritten from almost all literatures, with learning and insight. Also the traditional subjects of the theory of the novel, character, type, realism, etc., are illuminated from this wider international perspective. * René Wellek, Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale University *
Table of ContentsPreface to the Second Edition by Robert Scholes Preface by James Phelan 1: The Narrative Tradition 2: The Oral Heritage of Written Narrative 3: The Classical Heritage of Modern Narrative 4: Meaning in Narrative 5: Character in Narrative 6: Plot in Narrative 7: Point of View in Narrative 8: Narrative Theory, 1966-2006: A Narrative Works Cited Appendix Notes Index
