Download or read book The Nature of Fiction written by Gregory Currie and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-10-26 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important book provides a theory about the nature of fiction, and about the relation between the author, the reader and the fictional text. The approach is philosophical: that is to say, the author offers an account of key concepts such as fictional truth, fictional characters, and fiction itself. The book argues that the concept of fiction can be explained partly in terms of communicative intentions, partly in terms of a condition which excludes relations of counterfactual dependence between the world and the text. This communicative model is then applied to the following problems: how can something be 'true in the story' without being explicitly stated in the text? In what ways does interpreting a fictional story depend upon grasping its author's intentions? Is there always a unique best interpretation of a fictional text? What is the correct semantics for fictional names? What is the nature of our emotional response to a fictional work? In answering these questions the author explores the complex interaction between author, reader, and text. This interaction requires the reader to construct a 'fictional author' - a character in the story whose personality, beliefs and emotional states must be interpreted if the reader is to grasp the meaning of the work.
Download or read book The Nature of Fiction written by Gregory Currie and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Imagining and Knowing written by Gregory Currie and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-14 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Works of fiction are works of the imagination and for the imagination. Gregory Currie energetically defends the familiar idea that fictions are guides to the imagination, a view which has come under attack in recent years. Responding to a number of challenges to this standpoint, he argues that within the domain of the imagination there lies a number of distinct and not well-recognized capacities which make the connection between fiction and imagination work. Currie then considers the question of whether in guiding the imagination fictions may also guide our beliefs, our outlook, and our habits in directions of learning. It is widely held that fictions very often provide opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge and of skills. Without denying that this sometimes happens, this book explores the difficulties and dangers of too optimistic a picture of learning from fiction. It is easy to exaggerate the connection between fiction and learning, to ignore countervailing tendencies in fiction to create error and ignorance, and to suppose that claims about learning from fiction require no serious empirical support. Currie makes a case for modesty about learning from fiction -- reasoning that a lot of what we take to be learning in this area is itself a kind of pretence, that we are too optimistic about the psychological and moral insights of authors, that the case for fiction as a Darwinian adaptation is weak, and that empathy is both hard to acquire and not always morally advantageous.
Download or read book Mystery and Manners written by Flannery O'Connor and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1969 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection shows Flannery O'Connor's extraordinary versatility and expertise as a practitioner of the essayistic form. The book opens with "The King of the Birds", her famous account of raising peacocks. There are three essays on regional writing, two on teaching literature, and four on the writer and religion. Essays such as "The Nature and Aim of Fiction" and "Writing Short Stories" are gems, and their value to the contemporary reader -- and writer -- is inestimable. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Download or read book Literature Analytically Speaking written by Peter Swirski and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-03-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a new approach to interdisciplinary literary theory, Literature, Analytically Speaking integrates literary studies with analytic aesthetics, girded by neo-Darwinian evolution. Scrutinizing narrative fiction through a lens provided by analytic philosophy, revered literary theorist Peter Swirski puts new life into literary theory while fashioning a set of practical guidelines for critics in the interpretive trenches. Dismissing critical inquirers who deny intention its key role in the study of literary reception, Swirski extends the defense of intentionality to art and to human behavior in general. In the process, Swirski takes stock of the recent work in evolutionary theory, arguing that the analysis of narrative truth may be grounded in the neo-Darwinian paradigm which forms the empirical backbone behind his analytic approach. Literature, Analytically Speaking provides a series of precepts designed to capture the ways in which we do interpret (and ought to interpret) works of literature. Reflecting a resounding shift from the poststructuralist paradigm, Swirski's lively and colorful presentation, backed up by a dazzling variety of examples and case studies, reconceptualizes the aesthetics of literature and literary studies.
Download or read book Only Imagine written by Kathleen Stock and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only Imagine offers a theory of fictional content or, as it is sometimes known, 'fictional truth'. The theory of fictional content Kathleen Stock argues for is known as 'extreme intentionalism'; the idea that the fictional content of a particular work is equivalent to exactly what the author of the work intended the reader to imagine. Historically, this sort of view has been highly unpopular. Literary theorists and philosophers alike have poured scorn upon it. The first half of this book attempts to argue that it should in fact be taken very seriously as an adequate account of fictional truth: better, in fact, than many of its more popular rivals. The second half explores various explanatory benefits of extreme intentionalism for other issues in the philosophy of fiction and imagination. Namely, can fiction give us reliable knowledge? Why do we 'resist' imagining certain fictions? What, in fact, is a fiction? And, how should the imagination be characterised?
Download or read book The Grassling written by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A subtle, moving celebration of place and connectedness . . . The Grassling brings the sounds, smells and sights of the countryside alive like few other books. Burnett stretches the limits of prose, infusing it with poetic intensity to create a powerful, original voice' PD Smith, Guardian What fills my lungs is wider than breath could be. It is a place and a language torn, matted and melded; flowered and chiming with bones. That breath is that place and until I get there I will not really be breathing. Spurred on by her father's declining health and inspired by the history he once wrote of his small Devon village, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett delves through layers of memory, language and natural history to tell a powerful story of how the land shapes us and speaks to us. The Grassling is a book about roots: what it means to belong when the soil beneath our feet is constantly shifting, when the people and places that nurtured us are slipping away.
Download or read book The Nature of Small Birds written by Susie Finkbeiner and published by Revell. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Finkbeiner has deftly written this narrative of ordinary people finding their way, set against a backdrop of global upheaval and war; the characters are realistic and vibrant. Readers looking for realist family stories with a subtle thread of faith . . .will want to read Finkbeiner's latest."--Library Journal starred review *** In 1975, three thousand children were airlifted out of Saigon to be adopted into Western homes. When Mindy, one of those children, announces her plans to return to Vietnam to find her birth mother, her loving adopted family is suddenly thrown back to the events surrounding her unconventional arrival in their lives. Though her father supports Mindy's desire to meet her family of origin, he struggles privately with an unsettling fear that he'll lose the daughter he's poured his heart into. Mindy's mother undergoes the emotional rollercoaster inherent in the adoption of a child from a war-torn country, discovering the joy hidden amid the difficulties. And Mindy's sister helps her sort through relics that whisper of the effect the trauma of war has had on their family--but also speak of the beauty of overcoming. Told through three strong voices in three compelling timelines, The Nature of Small Birds is a hopeful story that explores the meaning of family far beyond genetic code. "A balanced story that's rich with nuance and gentle emotions."--Foreword Reviews "Readers who enjoy the work of Karen Kingsbury will want to take a look."--Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Fictional Environments written by Victoria Saramago and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-15 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist, 2022 ASLE Ecocritical Book Award Fictional Environments: Mimesis, Deforestation, and Development in Latin America investigates how fictional works have become sites for the production of knowledge, imagination, and intervention in Latin American environments. It investigates the dynamic relationship between fictional images and real places, as the lasting representations of forests, rural areas, and deserts in novels clash with collective perceptions of changes like deforestation and urbanization. From the backlands of Brazil to a developing Rio de Janeiro, and from the rainforests of Venezuela and Peru to the Mexican countryside, rapid deforestation took place in Latin America in the second half of the twentieth century. How do fictional works and other cultural objects dramatize, resist, and intervene in these ecological transformations? Through analyses of work by João Guimarães Rosa, Alejo Carpentier, Juan Rulfo, Clarice Lispector, and Mario Vargas Llosa, Victoria Saramago shows how novels have inspired conservationist initiatives and offered counterpoints to developmentalist policies, and how environmental concerns have informed the agendas of novelists as essayists, politicians, and public intellectuals. This book seeks to understand the role of literary representation, or mimesis, in shaping, sustaining, and negotiating environmental imaginaries during the deep, ongoing transformations that have taken place from the 1950s to the present.
Download or read book Man V Nature written by Diane Cook and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A refreshingly imaginative, daring debut collection of stories that illuminates with audacious wit the complexity of human behavior, and the veneer of civilization over our darkest urges. Told with perfect rhythm and unyielding brutality, these stories expose unsuspecting men and women to the realities of nature, the primal instincts of man, and the dark humor and heartbreak of our struggle to not only thrive, but survive. In "Girl on Girl," a high school freshman goes to disturbing lengths to help an old friend. An insatiable temptress pursues the one man she can't have in "Meteorologist Dave Santana." And in the title story, a long-fraught friendship comes undone when three buddies get impossibly lost on a lake it is impossible to get lost on. Below the quotidian surface of Diane Cook's worlds lurks an unexpected surreality that reveals our most curious, troubling, and bewildering behavior. Other stories explore situations pulled directly from the wild, imposing on human lives the danger, tension, and precariousness of the natural world: a pack of "not-needed" boys takes refuge in a murky forest where they compete against one another for their next meal; an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals and desirous women; helpless newborns are snatched from their suburban yards by a man who stalks them. Through these characters Cook asks: What is at the root of our most heartless, selfish impulses? Why are people drawn together in such messy, needful ways? When the unexpected intrudes upon the routine, what do we discover about ourselves? As entertaining as it is dangerous, this accomplished collection explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized, where nature acts as a catalyst for human drama and lays bare our vulnerabilities, fears, and desires.
Download or read book Essentials of the Theory of Fiction written by Michael J. Hoffman and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2005-07-06 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What accounts for the power of stories to both entertain and illuminate? This question has long compelled the attention of storytellers and students of literature alike, and over the past several decades it has opened up broader dialogues about the nature of culture and interpretation. This third edition of the bestselling Essentials of the Theory of Fiction provides a comprehensive view of the theory of fiction from the nineteenth century through modernism and postmodernism to the present. It offers a sample of major theories of fictional technique while emphasizing recent developments in literary criticism. The essays cover a variety of topics, including voice, point of view, narration, sequencing, gender, and race. Ten new selections address issues such as oral memory in African American fiction, temporality, queer theory, magical realism, interactive narratives, and the effect of virtual technologies on literature. For students and generalists alike, Essentials of the Theory of Fiction is an invaluable resource for understanding how fiction works. Contributors. M. M. Bakhtin, John Barth, Roland Barthes, Wayne Booth, John Brenkman, Peter Brooks, Catherine Burgass, Seymour Chatman, J. Yellowlees Douglas, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Wendy B. Faris, Barbara Foley, E. M. Forster, Joseph Frank, Joanne S. Frye, William H. Gass, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Gérard Genette, Ursula K. Heise, Michael J. Hoffman, Linda Hutcheon, Henry James, Susan S. Lanser, Helen Lock, Georg Lukács, Patrick D. Murphy, Ruth Ronen, Joseph Tabbi, Jon Thiem, Tzvetan Todorov, Virginia Woolf
Download or read book Human Nature Fact and Fiction written by Robin Headlam Wells and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-05-30 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Distinction of Fiction written by Dorrit Cohn and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2000-12 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies from the Modern Language Association Winner of the Modern Language Association's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies The border between fact and fiction has been trespassed so often it seems to be a highway. Works of history that include fictional techniques are usually held in contempt, but works of fiction that include history are among the greatest of classics. Fiction claims to be able to convey its own unique kinds of truth. But unless a reader knows in advance whether a narrative is fictional or not, judgment can be frustrated and confused. In The Distinction of Fiction, Dorrit Cohn argues that fiction does present specific clues to its fictionality, and its own justifications. Indeed, except in cases of deliberate deception, fiction achieves its purposes best by exercising generic conventions that inform the reader that it is fiction. Cohn tests her conclusions against major narrative works, including Proust's A la Recherche du temps perdu, Mann's Death in Venice, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and Freud's case studies. She contests widespread poststructuralist views that all narratives are fictional. On the contrary, she separates fiction and nonfiction as necessarily distinct, even when bound together. An expansion of Cohn's Christian Gauss lectures at Princeton and the product of many years of labor and thought, The Distinction of Fiction builds on narratological and phenomenological theories to show that boundaries between fiction and history can be firmly and systematically explored.
Download or read book Victorian Detective Fiction and the Nature of Evidence written by L. Frank and published by Springer. This book was released on 2003-07-02 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frank investigates an intertextual exchange between nineteenth-century historical disciplines (philology, cosmology, geology archaeology and evolutionary biology) and the detective fictions of Poe, Dickens, and Doyle. In responding to the writings of figures like Lyell, Darwin and E.B. Taylor, detective fiction initiated a transition from scriptural literalism and a prevailing Natural Theology to a naturalistic, secular worldview. In the process, detective fiction sceptically examined both the evidence such disciplines used and their narrative rendering of the world.
Download or read book Fiction written by Catharine Abell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-10 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By taking a distinctively institutional approach, Catharine Abell provides a unified solution to a wide range of philosophical problems raised by fiction. In particular, she draws attention to the epistemology of fiction, which has not yet attracted the philosophical scrutiny it warrants. There has been considerable discussion of what determines the contents of works of fiction, yet few attempts have been made to explain how audiences identify their contents, or to identify the norms governing the correct understanding and interpretation of them. This book answers both metaphysical and epistemological questions concerning fiction in a way that clarifies the relation between them: What distinguishes works of fiction from works of non-fiction? What is the nature of fictive utterances? How do audiences identify the contents of authors' fictive utterances? How does understanding a work of fiction differ from interpreting it? This book develops the first single theory to provide answers to these questions and many more.
Download or read book Mr g written by Alan Lightman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alan Lightman, the internationally bestselling author of Einstein's Dreams, presents Mr g, a celebration of the highs and lows of existence, on the grandest possible scale: the story of Creation, as told by God. Once before time existed, Mr g woke up from a nap and decided to create the universe. In the shimmering Void, where he lives with his Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva, he creates time, space, and matter. Soon follow stars, planets, animate matter, consciousness,and intelligent beings with moral dilemmas. But the creation of space and time has unintended consequences, including the arrival of Belhor, a clever and devious rival. Belhor delights in needling Mr g, demanding explanations for the inexplicable, offering his own opinions on the fledgling universes, and maintaining the necessity of evil. As Mr g’s favorite universe grows, he discovers how an act of creation can change everything in the world—including the creator himself.
Download or read book Back to Moscow written by Guillermo Erades and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Martin came to Moscow at the turn of the millennium hoping to discover the country of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and his beloved Chekhov. Instead he found a city turned on its head, where the grimmest vestiges of Soviet life exist side by side with the nonstop hedonism of the newly rich. Along with his hard-living expat friends, Martin spends less and less time on his studies, choosing to learn about the Mysterious Russian Soul from the city's unhinged nightlife scene"--
