In this Book
- Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction
- Book
- 1984
- Published by: University of Minnesota Press
- Series: Theory and History of Literature
summary
Ross Chambers shifs the emphasis to precisely the play of authority and mastery by focusing on the narrative situation or the “point” of telling a story in given context. He studies the relation between teller and listener in a set of French, English, and American short stories from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and detects in that relationship the key to the power of fiction. In each of these stories, the author identifies the narrative situation by recourse to the metaphor of seduction, a phenomenon Chambers finds characteristic of literary production in the modern period.
“Story and Situation is a powerful work of criticism, the best work in short narrative I know, and will redirect critics’ attention to a form which has always engaged readers but has recently been neglected by literary theorists. . . . It is clear, assured, and intelligently paced.”-Jonathan Culler, Cornell University
“Story and Situation is a powerful work of criticism, the best work in short narrative I know, and will redirect critics’ attention to a form which has always engaged readers but has recently been neglected by literary theorists. . . . It is clear, assured, and intelligently paced.”-Jonathan Culler, Cornell University
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- p. ix
- Foreword. After the Storyteller...
- pp. xi-xxii
- 1. Story and Situation
- pp. 3-17
- 2. Self-Situation and Readability
- pp. 18-49
- Appendix A: Saki, "The Open Window"
- pp. 227-230
- Appendix B: Marcel Schwob, "Les Sans-Gueule"
- pp. 231-235
- Bibliography
- pp. 239-245
- About the Author
- p. 257
Additional Information
ISBN
9780816682041
Related ISBN(s)
9780816612987
MARC Record
OCLC
49569227
Pages
280
Launched on MUSE
2015-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No