Hühn Eventfulness in British Fiction

Historical, Cultural and Social Aspects of the Tellability of Stories
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-3-11-021365-2
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 18, 222 Seiten, Gewicht: 10 g

Reihe: NarratologiaISSN

An event, defined as the decisive turn, the surprising point in the plot of a narrative, constitutes its tellability, the motivation for reading it. This book describes a framework for a narratological definition of eventfulness and its dependence on the historical, socio-cultural and literary context. A series of fifteen analyses of British novels and tales, from late medieval and early modern times to the late 20th century, demonstrates how this concept can be put into practice for a new, specifically contextual interpretation of the central relevance of these texts. The examples include Chaucer’s “Miller’s Tale”, Behn’s “Oroonoko”, Defoe’s “Moll Flanders”, Richardson’s “Pamela”, Fielding’s “Tom Jones”, Dickens’s “Great Expectations”, Hardy's “On the Western Circuit”, James’s “The Beast in the Jungle”, Joyce’s “Grace”, Conrad’s “Shadow-Line”, Woolf’s “Unwritten Novel”, Lawrence’s “Fanny and Annie”, Mansfield’s “At the Bay”, Fowles’s “Enigma” and Swift’s “Last Orders”. This selection is focused on the transitional period from 19th-century realism to 20th-century modernism because during these decades traditional concepts of what counts as an event were variously problematized; therefore, these texts provide a particularly interesting field for testing the analytical capacity of the term of eventfulness.

Zielgruppe

Academics, Institutes, Libraries

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hühn, Peter

Weitere Mitwirkende

Kempf, Markus

Kroll, Katrin

Wulf, Jette K.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturkritik: Hermeneutik und Interpretation

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Preface;6
2;Contents;8
3;1. Introduction;10
4;2. Geoffrey Chaucer: “The Miller’s Tale”;26
5;3. Aphra Behn: Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave: A True History (1688);40
6;4. Daniel Defoe: Moll Flanders (1722);58
7;5. Samuel Richardson: Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740);72
8;6. Henry Fielding: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749);83
9;7. Charles Dickens: Great Expectations (1861);96
10;8. Thomas Hardy: “On the Western Circuit” (1891);113
11;9. Henry James: “The Beast in the Jungle” (1903);123
12;10. James Joyce: “Grace” (1914);134
13;11. Joseph Conrad: The Shadow-Line: A Confession (1917);142
14;12. Virginia Woolf: “An Unwritten Novel” (1921);154
15;13. D. H. Lawrence: “Fanny and Annie” (1921);165
16;14. Katherine Mansfield: “At the Bay” (1922);173
17;15. John Fowles: “The Enigma” (1974);184
18;16. Graham Swift: Last Orders (1996);194
19;17. Conclusion;210

Über Autor(innen)

Peter Hühn, University of Hamburg; Markus Kempf, Hamburg, Germany.