A Companion To Narrative Theory (original) (raw)

Literary Narrative as an Infinite Resource in English Language Studies

Abstract. The problem of this paper is many-sided and exists for culturally sensitive language learners and teachers. It may be identified as difficulties arising from a rather narrow treatment of culture, including its very concept, and respective deficiencies in EFL. These problems can be possibly resolved through a flexible use of narrative in language teaching, while treating culture as a mode of life of a geographically and ethnically identifiable community whose heritage is encoded in its language. As literature enhances the expressiveness of the linguistic code in view of the artistic principles employed, imaginative literature as a resource is virtually inexhaustible. Discussions of a story and character may be extended to a more professional consideration of the structure of the work - the conflict, its other components, the literary technique, language and style. Questions of culture specifically may tackle the scenery, behaviours and other identifiable features, but, most importantly, can exploit the language for routine senses of the words, for their more suggestive meaning and for the most delicate points of usage, all of which can be accompanied by word stories. These are the questions which constitute the cultural potential of language and from which the learners can profit the most. There is also the instigated problem of the precarious status of the humanities at present, the resolution of which depends on the point of view taken. The conclusions are based on classroom research and on research into uses of English, especially on a study of literature as a use of language.

The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative

The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, 2008

What is narrative? How does it work and how does it shape our lives and the texts we read? H. Porter Abbott emphasizes that narrative is found not just in literature, film, and theater, but everywhere in the ordinary course of people's lives. This widely used introduction, now thoroughly revised, is informed throughout by recent developments in the field and includes two new chapters. With its lucid exposition of concepts and suggestions for further reading, this book is not only an excellent introduction for courses focused on narrative but also an invaluable resource for students and scholars across a wide range of fields, including literature and drama, film and media, society and politics, journalism, autobiography, history, and still others throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

A history of English literature

2002

This series aims to be comprehensive and succinct, and to recognize that to write literary history involves more than placing texts in chronological sequence. Thus the emphasis within each volume falls both on plotting the significant literary developments of a given period and on the wider cultural contexts within which they occurred. "Cultural history" is construed in broad terms and authors address such issues as politics, society, the arts, ideologies, varieties of literary production and consumption, and dominant genres and modes. Each volume evaluates the lasting effects of the literary period under discussion, incorporating such topics as critical reception and modern reputations. The effect of each volume is to give the reader a sense of possessing a crucial sector of literary terrain, of understanding the forces that give a period its distinctive cast, and of seeing how writing of a given period impacts on, and is shaped by, its cultural circumstances. Each volume recommends itself as providing an authoritative and up-to-date entrée to texts and issues, and their historical implications, and will therefore interest students, teachers and the general reader alike. The series as a whole will be attractive to libraries as a work that renews and redefines a familiar form.