MacArthur Extravagant Narratives

Closure and Dynamics in the Epistolary Form
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-6082-1
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 308 Seiten

Reihe: Princeton Legacy Library

Challenging the view of epistolary narrative as a faulty precursor to the nineteenth-century realist novel, Elizabeth MacArthur argues that the openness and flexibility that characterize correspondences, both real and fictional, reflect the preoccupations of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her readings of the Lettres portugaises, Mme du Deffand's correspondence with Horace Walpole, and Rousseau's La Nouvelle Hlose propose an alternative to closure-oriented theories of narrative as they uncover an interplay between two forces: a tendency towards closure and meaning (metaphor) and a tendency towards openness and desire (metonymy). While such an interplay structures all narrative, the epistolary form differs from the third or first person in the extent to which metonymy predominates. The author shows how critics and editors of correspondences have attempted to control their metonymy, channeling epistolary energy into univocal meaning. By juxtaposing real and fictional epistolary works, MacArthur reveals the similarities between the two, particularly their "extravagance": ambiguity, openness, and forward-moving energy.

Originally published in 1990.

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Autoren/Hrsg.

MacArthur, Elizabeth Jane

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

FrontMatter, pg. i
Contents, pg. vii
Acknowledgments, pg. ix
Introduction, pg. 3
CHAPTER ONE. The Genesis of Epistolary Narrative in the Seventeenth Century, pg. 36
CHAPTER TWO. Plotting a Metonymical Life Story: The Correspondence of Madame du Deffand and Horace Walpole, pg. 117
CHAPTER THREE. The Open Dynamic of Narrative: Metaphor and Metonymy in Rousseau's Julie, pg. 186
Closing, pg. 271
Bibliography, pg. 277
Index, pg. 291