Combining narratological and stylistic methods, this book theorizes dual narrative dynamics consisting of plot development and covert progression and demonstrates the consequences for the interpretation of literary works. In narratives with such dynamics, writers work simultaneously with overt and covert trajectories of signification, establishing a range of relationships between them. The two parallel narrative movements may complement, contradict or even subvert each other, and these relationships significantly influence readers’ understanding not just of events but also of characters, themes, and aesthetic values. The book provides a systematic theoretical account of such previously neglected dual narrative dynamics, substantiated and enriched by the textual analysis of works by Ambrose Bierce, Kate Chopin, Franz Kafka, and Katherine Mansfield. The study explores the many ways that these authors have used dual dynamics to increase the power of their narratives. In addition, the book identifies the challenges such dual dynamics present not only for narratology but also for stylistics and translation studies, and it develops sound and provocative proposals for meeting those challenges. In taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of narrative and literary theory, literary criticism, literary stylistics, and translation studies.

This book examines overlaps, differences, and complementarities between narratology and stylistics, and shows the consequences of this examination for the practical analysis of prose narrative. Narratology identifies discourse as one of its two main objects of study (story being the other), and stylistics, of course, designates style as its concern. Too often, however, work in each of these fields proceeds without attention to developments in the other. This book corrects that situation by looking beneath the superficial similarities between the “discourse” of narratology and the “style” of fictional stylistics. The author shows that the two seemingly interchangeable terms actually refer to different textual elements. For example, both narratology and stylistics identify point of view as an important element of discourse and style, respectively, but each approach conceives of it differently and thus analyzes it differently. This book argues that the different analyses are complementary and shows how they can be brought together. This synthesis leads to richer conceptions of point of view as well as more comprehensive and precise analyses of its functions and effects in individual narratives. For its theoretical and interpretive contributions, this book will appeal to scholars and students in narrative studies, literary stylistics, and literary theory and criticism.

Cognitive Narratives Thematics proposes a new way in which narrative works organise their thematic material. It rehabilitates the study of what books are about by providing a cognitive narrative thematic model (CNT). Part I presents CNT by combining different approaches to narrative, such as evolutionary theory, semiotics, possible worlds theory, or rhetorical criticism. Part II applies CNT to a variety of well-known narratives in different modalities, such as Robert Browning’s "My Last Duchess", Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, Frank Miller’s 300, or Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. It also considers literary histories and digital humanities. Daniel Candel shows that CNT deserves greater attention and that thematics generates its own forms and adds to the aesthetic pleasure of the text. Candel illustrates that CNT improves the established interpretations of the narrative works it studies. This innovative study reveals how CNT offers readers a deeper understanding, and how readers and critics are often using CNT intuitively without being aware of it. It is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of narrative theory.

In many fictional narratives, the progression of the plot exists in tension with a very different and powerful dynamic that runs, at a hidden and deeper level, throughout the text. In this volume, Dan Shen systematically investigates how stylistic analysis is indispensable for uncovering this covert progression through rhetorical narrative criticism. The book brings to light the covert progressions in works by the American writers Edgar Allan Poe, Stephan Crane and Kate Chopin and British writer Katherine Mansfield.

This is an open access book. The 5th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2023) was held on October 20-22, 2023 in Chengdu, China. Literature is an art that reflects the social life and expresses the author's thoughts and feelings by shaping images with language as the means. Art is a social ideology that uses images to reflect reality but is more typical than reality. It includes literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music and so on. Literature is one of the forms of expression belonging to art. Literature and art are difficult to separate by a clear boundary, but also for people to create more infinite imagination space. ICLAHD 2023 is to bring together innovative academics and industrial experts in the field of Literature, Art and Human Development research to a common forum. The primary goal of the conference is to promote research and developmental activities in Literature, Art and Human Development research and another goal is to promote scientific information interchange between researchers, developers, engineers, students, and practitioners working all around the world. The conference will be held every year to make it an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in Literature, Art and Human Development research and related areas.

Narrative practice has come under attack in the current "post-truth" era. In fact, many associate "narrative hermeneutics"--the field of inquiry concerned with reflection on the meaning and interpretation of stories--directly with this putative movement beyond truth. Challenging this view, The Use and Abuse of Stories argues that this broad arena of inquiry instead serves as a vitally important vehicle for addressing and redressing the social and political problems at hand. Hanna Meretoja and Mark Freeman have gathered an interdisciplinary group of esteemed authors to explore how interpretation is relevant to current discussions in narrative studies and to the broader debate that revolves around issues of truth, facts, and narrative. The contributions turn to the tradition of narrative hermeneutics to emphasize that narrative is a cultural meaning-making practice that is integral to how we make sense of who we are and who we could be. Addressing topics ranging from the dangers of political narratives to questions of truth in medical and psychiatric practice, this volume shows how narrative hermeneutics contributes to topical debates both in interdisciplinary narrative studies and in the current cultural and political situation in which issues of truth have gained new urgency.

This anthology brings together essential essays on major facets of narrative dynamics, that is, the means by which "narratives traverse their often unlikely routes from beginning to end." It includes the most widely cited and discussed essays on narrative beginnings, temporality, plot and emplotment, sequence and progression, closure, and frames. The text is designed as a basic reader for graduate courses in narrative and critical theory across disciplines including literature, drama and theatre, and film. Narrative Dynamics includes such classic exponents as E. M. Forster on story and plot; Vladimir Propp on the structure of the folktale; R. S. Crane on plot; Boris Tomashevsky on story, plot, and, motif; M. M. Bakhtin on the chronotope; and Gerard Genette on narrative time. Richardson highlights essential feminist essays by Nancy K. Miller on plot and plausibility, Rachel Blau Duplessis on closure, and Susan Winnett on narrative and desire. These are complimented by newer pieces by Susan Stanford Friedman on spatialization and Robyn Warhol on serial fiction. Other major contributions include Edward Said on beginnings, Hayden White on historical narrative, Peter Brooks on plot, Paul Ricoeur on time, D. A. Miller on closure, James Phelan on progression, and Jacques Derrida on the frame. Recent essays from the perspective of cultural studies, postmodernism, and artificial intelligence bring this collection right up to the present.

This second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics provides a comprehensive introduction and reference point to key areas in the field of stylistics. The four sections of the volume encompass a wide range of approaches from classical rhetoric to cognitive neuroscience. Issues that are covered include: historical perspectives, centring on rhetoric, formalism and functionalism. the elements of stylistic analysis, including foregrounding, relevance theory, conversation analysis, narrative, metaphor, speech and thought presentation and point of view. current areas of influential research such as cognitive poetics, corpus stylistics, critical stylistics, multimodality, creative writing and reader response. four newly commissioned chapters in the emerging fields of cognitive grammar, forensic linguistics, the stylistics of children’s literature and a corpus stylistic study of mental health issues. All of these new chapters are written by leading researchers in their respective fields. Each of the 33 chapters in this volume is written by a specialist. Each chapter provides an introduction to the subject, an overview of its history, an instructive example of how to conduct a stylistic analysis, a section with recommendations for practice and a discussion of possible future developments in the area for readers to follow up on. The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics, second edition is essential reading for researchers, postgraduates and undergraduate students working in this area.

Many films and novels defy our ability to make sense of the plot. While puzzling storytelling, strange incongruities, inviting enigmas and persistent ambiguities have been central to the effects of many literary and cinematic traditions, a great deal of contemporary films and television series bring such qualities to the mainstream—but wherein lies the attractiveness of perplexing works of fiction? This collected volume offers the first comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and trans-medial approach to the question of cognitive challenge in narrative art, bringing together psychological, philosophical, formal-historical, and empirical perspectives from leading scholars across these fields.