In this ground breaking work of synthesis, Monika Fludernik combines insights from literary theory and linguistics to provide a challenging new theory of narrative. This book is both an historical survey and theoretical study, with the author drawing on an enormous range of examples from the earliest oral study to contemporary experimental fiction. She uses these examples to prove that recent literature, far from heralding the final collapse of narrative, represents the epitome of a centuries long developmental process.

In this ground breaking work of synthesis, Monika Fludernik combines insights from literary theory and linguistics to provide a challenging new theory of narrative. This book is both an historical survey and theoretical study, with the author drawing on an enormous range of examples from the earliest oral study to contemporary experimental fiction. She uses these examples to prove that recent literature, far from heralding the final collapse of narrative, represents the epitome of a centuries long developmental process.

An Introduction to Narratology is an accessible, practical guide to narratological theory and terminology and its application to literature. In this book, Monika Fludernik outlines: the key concepts of style, metaphor and metonymy, and the history of narrative forms narratological approaches to interpretation and the linguistic aspects of texts, including new cognitive developments in the field how students can use narratological theory to work with texts, incorporating detailed practical examples a glossary of useful narrative terms, and suggestions for further reading. This textbook offers a comprehensive overview of the key aspects of narratology by a leading practitioner in the field. It demystifies the subject in a way that is accessible to beginners, but also reflects recent theoretical developments and narratology’s increasing popularity as a critical tool.

The past several decades have seen an explosion of interest in narrative, with this multifaceted object of inquiry becoming a central concern in a wide range of disciplinary fields and research contexts. As accounts of what happened to particular people in particular circumstances and with specific consequences, stories have come to be viewed as a basic human strategy for coming to terms with time, process, and change. However, the very predominance of narrative as a focus of interest across multiple disciplines makes it imperative for scholars, teachers, and students to have access to a comprehensive reference resource.

Narrative Research has developed into an international and interdisciplinary field. This volume collects fifteen essays which look at narrative and narrativity from various perspectives, including literary studies and hermeneutics, cognitive theory and creativity research, metaphor studies, and film theory and intermediality

The proliferation of media and their ever-increasing role in our daily life has produced a strong sense that understanding media—everything from oral storytelling, literary narrative, newspapers, and comics to radio, film, TV, and video games—is key to understanding the dynamics of culture and society. Storyworlds across Media explores how media, old and new, give birth to various types of storyworlds and provide different ways of experiencing them, inviting readers to join an ongoing theoretical conversation focused on the question: how can narratology achieve media-consciousness? The first part of the volume critically assesses the cross- and transmedial validity of narratological concepts such as storyworld, narrator, representation of subjectivity, and fictionality. The second part deals with issues of multimodality and intermediality across media. The third part explores the relation between media convergence and transmedial storyworlds, examining emergent forms of storytelling based on multiple media platforms. Taken together, these essays build the foundation for a media-conscious narratology that acknowledges both similarities and differences in the ways media narrate.

This Companion addresses the contemporary transformation of critical and cultural theory, with special emphasis on the way debates in the field have changed in recent decades. Features original essays from an international team of cultural theorists which offer fresh and compelling perspectives and sketch out exciting new areas of theoretical inquiry Thoughtfully organized into two sections – lineages and problematics – that facilitate its use both by students new to the field and advanced scholars and researchers Explains key schools and movements clearly and succinctly, situating them in relation to broader developments in culture, society, and politics Tackles issues that have shaped and energized the field since the Second World War, with discussion of familiar and under-theorized topics related to living and laboring, being and knowing, and agency and belonging