The architecture of narrative time : Thomas Mann and the problems of modern narrative / Erica Wickerson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wickerson, Erica, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mann, Thomas, 1875-1955--Criticism and interpretation.

Mann, Thomas.

Mann, Thomas, 1875-1955.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

x, 214 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Summary:

Time matters to all of us. It dominates everyday discourse: diaries, schedules, clocks, working hours, opening times, appointments, weekdays and weekends, national holidays, religious festivals, birthdays, and anniversaries. But how do we, as unique individuals, subjectively experience time? The slowness of an hour in a boring talk, the swiftness of a summer holiday, the fleetingness of childhood, the endless wait for pivotal news: these are experiences to which we all can relate and of which we commonly speak. How can a writer not only report such experiences but also conjure them up in words so that readers share the frustration, the excitement, the anticipation, are on tenterhooks with a narrator or character, or in melancholic mourning for a time long-since passed, which we never experienced ourselves? Erica Wickerson suggests that the evocation of subjective temporal experience occurs in every sentence, on every page, at every plot turn, in any narrative. The Architecture of Narrative Time offers a new template for understanding narrative time that combines close readings with analysis of the structural overview.

Contents:

Introduction 1

Narratology on time 2

Thomas Mann on time 5

Theoretical approach 8

Structure and argument 9

Subjective experience and perspectives on time 16

1 Space 19

Marking tempo in 'spatial form' 23

Marking tempo in the 'pictorial present' 30

Going back as moving forward 39

Conclusion 49

2 Performance 51

Consecutive simultaneity 53

Stages of time 59

Sexual performance and performative sexuality 75

Conclusion

3 Symbols and Motifs 91

Shifting perspectives: symbolic anticipation and retrospection 92

Narrative manoeuvres: symbolic analepsis 100

Meta-muthos: the temporal microcosm 108

Webs of allusion: multiple times 117

Webs if illusion: confusing times 120

Conclusion 125

4 Myth 127

Plot repetition: Felix Krull 129

Plot repetition and story repetition: The Blood of the Walsungs 135

Story repetition: Doctor Faustus 139

Illusory, erratic repetition: The Tin Drum 146

Conclusion 152

5 History 155

History now and then 160

History as myth, metaphor, and magic realism 174

Conclusion 192

Conclusion 195

The empathetic experience of time 195

An architecture of time 196

Reading Mann 198

Opening the door to subjectivity 199.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780198793274

0198793278

OCLC:

993100050