Doležel / Dolezel Possible Worlds of Fiction and History

The Postmodern Stage
Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8018-9744-3
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 0 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

With Possible Worlds of Fiction and History, Lubomír Doležel reexamines the claim—made first by Roland Barthes and then popularized by Hayden White—that "there is no fundamental distinction between fiction and history."

Doležel rejects this assertion and demonstrates how literary and discourse theory can help the historian to restate the difference between fiction and history. He challenges scholars to reassess the postmodern viewpoint by reintroducing the idea of possible worlds. Possible-worlds semantics reveals that possible worlds of fiction and possible worlds of history differ in their origins, cultural functions, and structural and semantic features. Doležel’s book is the first systematic application of this idea to the theory and philosophy of history.

Possible Worlds of Fiction and History is the crowning work of one of literary theory’s most engaged thinkers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Doležel, Lubomír

Dolezel, Lubomir

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Semiotik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Prefce
Introduction: Remarks on Postmodernism
1. The Postmodern Challenge
2. Representation of the Past and Possible Worlds
3. Postmodern Historical Worlds: Simon Schama
4. Postmodern Historical Fiction
5. Counterfactual Narratives of the Past
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Doležel, Lubomír
Lubomír Doležel is professor emeritus of comparative literature at the University of Toronto and author of Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds, also published by Johns Hopkins.