Fictional discourse : a radical fictionalist semantics / Stefano Predelli.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Predelli, Stefano, 1961- author.

Contributor:

J. Bertram Lippincott Library Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Discourse analysis, Literary.

Fiction--History and criticism--Theory, etc.

Fiction.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Storytelling in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

viii, 184 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Summary:

Fictional Discourse: A Radical Fictionalist Semantics combines the insight of linguistic and philosophical semantics with the study of fictional language. Its central idea is familiar to anyone exposed to the ways of narrative fiction, namely the notion of a fictional teller. Starting with premises having to do with fictional names such as 'Holmes' or 'Emma', Stefano Predelli develops Radical Fictionalism, a theory that is subsequently applied to central themes in the analysis of fiction. Among other things, he discusses the distinction between storyworlds and narrative peripheries, the relationships between homodiegetic and heterodiegetic narrative, narrative time, unreliability, and closure. The final chapters extend Radical Fictionalism to critical discourse, as Predelli introduces the ideas of critical and biased retelling, and pauses on the relationships between Radical Fictionalism and talk about literary characters.

Contents:

1.1 The Problem: A Taster p. 6

1.2 Words and Types p. 7

1.3 Proper Names p. 9

1.4 A Few Further Preliminaries p. 12

1.5 Impartations p. 14

1.6 Where Am I Now? p. 17

2 The Sign of Four: Fictional Tellers p. 19

2.2 Fictional Names p. 21

2.3 The Actual and the Fictional p. 25

2.4 Fictional Impartations p. 28

*2.5 Loose Ends: Surveying the Literature p. 31

*2.6 Matters from the Real World: Authors and Speech Acts p. 35

*2.7 Searle on Fiction-Saying p. 39

2.8 Where Am I Now? p. 43

3 Emma: The Narrative Periphery p. 45

3.1 Preliminaries: Heterodiegetic Telling p. 45

3.2 Impartations in the Periphery p. 47

3.3 Names in the Periphery p. 52

*3.4 Narratology and Time p. 57

3.5 Where Am I Now? p. 62

4 Cat's Cradle: Peripheral Importations p. 64

4.2 Peripheral Semantics p. 65

*4.4 Real Names in Fiction p. 75

*4.5 Fictional Languages p. 80

4.6 Where Am I Now? p. 83

5 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge: From Our Point of View p. 84

5.2 The Way of Retelling p. 86

5.3 Prefixed Talk: The Unified Way of Retelling p. 91

*5.4 The Way of Truth: Preliminaries p. 96

*5.5 The Way of Truth: The Paratactic Hypothesis p. 101

*5.6 'Does Not Exist' p. 103

5.7 Where Am I Now? p. 108

6 Reflex and Bone Structure: Periphery and Interpretation p. 110

6.2 Inconsistent Fictions p. 111

6.3 Reliability: Peripheral Lying p. 116

6.4 The Excesses of Storyworld Importation p. 119

6.5 Russell Vipers and Closure p. 123

*6.6 Quoted Discourse and Narrative Levels p. 127

6.7 Where Am I Now? p. 131

7 The Turn of the Screw: Critical Discourse p. 132

7.2 From Educated Naturalization to Critical Retelling p. 134

7.3 Critical Retelling and Underreading p. 137

7.4 Biased Retelling and the Canon p. 141

7.5 Where Am I Now? p. 147

8 *Tess of the D'Urbervilles: Literary Characters p. 149

8.2 Other 'Characters' p. 151

8.3 Critical Characters p. 155

8.4 Character-Names p. 159

8.5 'Homonymies' p. 162

8.6 Where Am I Now? p. 167.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the J. Bertram Lippincott Library Fund.

ISBN:

9780198854128

0198854129

OCLC:

1113411504

Publisher Number:

99984435140