Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of NarrativeIn Experiencing Fiction, James Phelan develops a provocative and engaging affirmative answer to the question, "Can we experience narrative fiction in similar ways?" Phelan grounds that answer in two elements of narrative located at the intersection between authorial design and reader response: judgments and progressions. Phelan contends that focusing on the three main kinds of judgment--interpretive, ethical, and aesthetic--and on the principles underlying a narrative's movement from beginning to end reveals the experience of reading fiction to be potentially sharable. In Part One, Phelan skillfully analyzes progressions and judgments in narratives with a high degree of narrativity: Jane Austen's Persuasion, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever," and Ian McEwan's Atonement. In Part Two, Phelan turns his attention to the different relationships between judgments and progressions in hybrid forms--in the lyric narratives of Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," Sandra Cisneros's "Woman Hollering Creek," and Robert Frost's "Home Burial," and in the portrait narratives of Alice Munro's "Prue" and Ann Beattie's "Janus." More generally, Phelan moves back and forth between the exploration of theoretical principles and the detailed work of interpretation. As a result, Experiencing Fiction combines Phelan's fresh and compelling readings of numerous innovative narratives with his fullest articulation of the rhetorical theory of narrative. |
Contents
Introduction Judgments Progressions and the Rhetorical | 1 |
PART | 22 |
Chapter Three Chicago Criticism New Criticism Cultural Thematics | 79 |
Copyright | |
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Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of ... James Phelan No preview available - 2007 |
Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of ... James Phelan No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
action aesthetic achievement aesthetic judgments Alida Andrea Anne Anne's atonement audience's Austen authorial audience baby beginning behavior Beloved Bierce's bowl Briony Briony's novel Cecilia and Robbie chapter characters CleĆ³filas CleĆ³filas's consequences Crimson Candle Criticism cultural thematics Delphin Denver developing effect emotional engagement ethical and aesthetic ethical judgments experience exposition feel Fiction flesh-and-blood readers Frost Furthermore global instability Grace husband implied author initial interpretive and ethical interpretive judgment James Phelan judge judgments and progressions La Llorona McEwan's means ments mimetic mini-narrative Morrison move Munro narrative comedy narrative progression narrator narrator's neo-Aristotelian older waiter Paul D Paul D's perspective Persuasion portraiture Pride and Prejudice principles protagonist Prue Prue's rative readerly dynamics reading recognize reconfiguration relation response revelation rhetorical poetics Roman Fever Sethe Sethe's choice signals significant sion situation static disequilibrium story technique telenovelas telling tension textual tion tive understanding Well-Lighted Place Wentworth Wharton Woman Hollering Creek