Research Catalog

Time in fiction

Title
Time in fiction [electronic resource] / Craig Bourne and Emily Caddick Bourne.
Author
Bourne, Craig.
Publication
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Available Online

  • Available from home with a valid library card
  • Available onsite at NYPL

Details

Additional Authors
Bourne, Emily Caddick.
Description
1 online resource (xvi, 263 pages) : illustrations.
Summary
"What can we learn about the world from engaging with fictional time-series? What should we make of stories involving time travellers who change the past, recurrence of a single day, foreknowledge of the future, the freezing or rewinding of time, or time-series which split into alternative courses of events? Do they show us radical alternative possibilities concerning the nature of time, or do they show that even the impossible can be represented in fiction? Neither, so this book argues. Defending the view that a fiction represents a single possible world, the authors show how apparent representations of radically different time-series can be explained in terms of how worlds are represented without there being any fictional world which has such a time-series. In this way, the book uses the complexities of fictional time to get to the core of the relation between truth in fiction and possibility. It provides a logic and metaphysics to deal with the fact that fictions can leave certain features of their fictional worlds indefinite, and draws comparisons and connections between fictional and scientific representations and hypotheses. Utilising the notion of a counterpart, the authors show how to understand claims concerning persistence of characters and their identity across fictions, and what it means for a fiction to be 'set' at an actual time. Consideration is given to motion in fiction, asking whether it is sometimes continuous and sometimes discrete, how to understand different rates of change, and whether fictional time itself can be said to flow."--
Uniform Title
Time in fiction (Online)
Alternative Title
Time in fiction (Online)
Subject
  • Time in literature
  • Time perception in literature
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-257) and index.
Access (note)
  • Access restricted to authorized users.
LCCN
2015948042
OCLC
ssj0001673829
Author
Bourne, Craig.
Title
Time in fiction [electronic resource] / Craig Bourne and Emily Caddick Bourne.
Imprint
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2016.
Edition
First edition.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-257) and index.
Access
Access restricted to authorized users.
Connect to:
Available from home with a valid library card
Available onsite at NYPL
Added Author
Bourne, Emily Caddick.
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