The Limits of Narration: Lists and Literary History

This article argues that it is possible to write a literary history of lists. Literary history told through the feature of the list promises to be highly relevant because it necessarily combines form and function, content and context, as well as genre and meaning. Lists provide a means of pushing the boundaries of narration, of negotiating meaning, of exploring the roles of the narrator, and of playing with the audience’s expectations. These functions can all be aligned more generally with questions of literariness. This article argues that lists can actively promote literariness in the trajectory of experientiality, as is demonstrated by the example of epic poetry and the epic catalogue, which looms large in the tradition of all list-writing in literature. The examples range from the Iliad to Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and Les Murray’s Fredy Neptune.