Research Catalog
Unlikely stories : causality and the nature of modern narrative
- Title
- Unlikely stories : causality and the nature of modern narrative / Brian Richardson.
- Author
- Richardson, Brian, 1953-
- Publication
- Newark : University of Delaware Press ; London ; Cranbury, NJ : Associated University Presses, 1997.
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Use in library | PR478.C38 R53 1997 | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- 219 pages; 24 cm
- Summary
- Unlikely Stories is the first book-length study of the full range of causal issues in narrative, and explores the neglected question of just what brings about events in a fictional text. This book focuses on causality as a foundational element of all narratives, and as a distinguishing feature of many of the most compelling works of distinctively modern fiction and drama. Richardson draws on a wide range of literary texts: seminal ancient and early modern works, the classics of high modernism, and numerous avant-garde and postmodern pieces, as well as narratives by recent postcolonial and U.S. ethnic authors.
- This study brings together a number of related critical issues, including the causal laws that attempt to govern fictional worlds, the reader's implication in the causal dilemmas that confront major characters, and the philosophical and ideological ascriptions of cause that are variously embodied, interrogated, or parodied. One of the most significant features of this study is its disclosure of just how fundamental and widespread causal issues are in complex narratives - and how insistently they are thematized in twentieth-century works.
- Subject
- 1900-1999
- English literature > 20th century > History and criticism
- Causation in literature
- American literature > 20th century > History and criticism
- Postmodernism (Literature) > English-speaking countries
- Modernism (Literature) > English-speaking countries
- Necessity (Philosophy) in literature
- Coincidence in literature
- Narration (Rhetoric)
- American literature
- English literature
- Modernism (Literature)
- Postmodernism (Literature)
- Kausalität
- Handlung Literatur
- Postmodernisme et littérature
- Nécessité (philosophie) dans la littérature
- Littérature anglaise > 20e siècle > Histoire et critique
- Littérature américaine > 20e siècle > Histoire et critique
- Causalité > Dans la littérature
- Modernisme (littérature)
- English-speaking countries
- Englisch
- Genre/Form
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- 1. Philosophical Systems, Fictional Worlds, and Ideological Contestations -- 2. A Poetics of Probability: Systems of Causation within Fictional Worlds -- 3. Temporal Sequence, Causal Connection, and the Nature of Narrative: Disjunction and Convergence in Mrs. Dalloway and Pinter's Landscape -- 4. Modernism's Unlikely Stories: Necessity, Chance, and Death in Nostromo, Light in August, and Invisible Man -- 5. Molloy and the Limits of Causality: Ontological Skepticism, Narrative Transgression, and Metafictional Paradox -- 6. Forgotten Causes: Non-Western Beliefs and Metaphysical Contestation in Modern Asian, Postcolonial, and U.S. Ethnic Narratives -- 7. Plotting against Probability: Tom Stoppard, Bharati Mukherjee, Angela Carter, and the Structure of Coincidence in Postmodern Narrative -- Conclusion: Language, Interpretation, and Causality in Twentieth-Century Narrative.
- ISBN
- 0874136091
- 9780874136098
- LCCN
- 96030906
- OCLC
- ocm35229163
- 35229163
- SCSB-14130832
- Owning Institutions
- Princeton University Library