Narratology in the Twenty-First Century: The Cognitive Approach to Narrative

PMLA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 125 (4) ◽  
pp. 924-930 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Fludernik
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
New Criticism ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
The Waves

Literary theory in the twentieth century was heavily influenced by linguistics. The structuralist model that set the waves of literary theories in motion originated in Saussurean linguistics and its Jakobsonian elaborations. One could argue that until the 1980s all literary theory, and all linguistics for that matter, was based on an analysis of langue, or the system of language or literature or text, to the detriment of parole, the practices, contexts, and negotiations of speakers, writers, and readers. The structuralist model, with its theoretical expansion of close-reading practices, already entrenched in the wake of the New Criticism, generalized the frame of mind that was soon to become the bogeyman of poststructuralist and cultural studies attacks. The formula could be summarized as No history, no ethics, no themes, no aesthetics, and no context—period.

scholarly journals PERPETUAL PARADOXES: A NEW CRITICAL READING OF “THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE” AND “STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING”

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Central Point ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
New Criticism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Point Of Reference

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by R. Frost and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by W. B. Yeats are two of the most representative poems of these poets. Part of their universal appeal lies in their messages and their craftsmanship, and both the qualities relate to the New Critical conception of poetry. Since New Criticism as a literary theory, originating in the early twentieth century, seeks to explore poems through some central points of references in a close reading, this present study takes paradoxes as a central point of reference for a close reading of the two poems and attempts to unveil their poetic enigma by examining what tensions the paradoxes create through the speakers’ grappling with the dilemmas they are facing, how the paradoxes are being resolved or left unresolved, what similarities the two poems share in this regard, and what poetic unity the poems ultimately attain through the development of these paradoxes.

“Working the Waves”: The Plebeian Culture and Moral Economy of Traditional Basque Fishing Brotherhoods

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Hess
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Artisanal Fishing ◽  
Collective Voice ◽  
Ecological Balance ◽  
The Future ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Waves

Although by the twentieth century, industrial-capitalist fishing methods were already disrupting the Basque fishing brotherhoods (cofradías), the collective voice of the fishermen and their communities, artisanal fishing, and the traditional customs surrounding it managed to survive for a few more decades. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, the future for local Basque fishermen looks bleak. Due to factors beyond their control, the brotherhoods, which for a long time guaranteed both an ecological balance in the sea and common wealth among the fishermen, have become totally defunct.

Teaching with New Critics

CLEaR ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-40
Author(s):  
Anton Pokrivčák
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
First Century ◽  
New Criticism ◽  
Teaching Literature ◽  
Real Nature ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Literary Work Of Art ◽  
New Critics ◽  
Linguistic Structures

Abstract Anglo-American New Criticism was one of the most important movements in the twentieth century literary theories. It stressed the objectivity of a literary work of art and claimed that literary critics as well as teachers should concentrate, primarily, on the text, its linguistic structures and the ambiguities of meaning resulting from them, and only secondarily on the text´s extraliterary relationships. After the New Critics´ popularity in the early decades of the last century, in its second part they were refused as pure formalists, supposedly unable to see the real nature of a literary work in its social circumstances. The article attempts to reassess New Criticism as a movement which contributed significantly to the reading and teaching literature and claims that their importance has not diminished even in the twenty-first century.

Race, Gender, and Propriety in Dominican Commemoration

2018 ◽  
pp. 75-110
Author(s):  
Dixa Ramírez
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Women Writers ◽  
First Century ◽  
Julia Alvarez ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
National Icon ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Dominican Women ◽  
Dominant Narratives

This chapter argues that Salomé Ureña’s canonization through the twentieth century required various forms of ghosting. The first half of the chapter traces her commemoration in sculpture, imagery, and biography to show how her celebration as a national icon relied both on her phenotypical whitening and on the elision of some of the strongest desires expressed in her work. The second half of the chapter examines writings about Ureña by two twenty-first century feminist and diasporic Dominican women writers, Julia Alvarez and Chiqui Vicioso. Through close reading analysis and a black diasporic feminist lens, the chapter proposes that feminist and critical race theories, the increase in Dominican literacy rates, and the growth of a diasporic Dominican community with a different vocabulary of race allow Alvarez’s and Vicioso’s recuperative texts to compete with other dominant narratives. Their portrayals model narratives of belonging in which women and nonwhite subjects can be legible as full subjects with myriad desires.

scholarly journals UDSIGELSE OG KULTURMØDER: Om sammenhængen mellem postkolonial litteratur og ansættelse af nydanskere

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Bojsen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Job Interview ◽  
Ahmadou Kourouma ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
Communicative Processes

This article sets out to discuss how we may work with the notion of ‘cultural encounters’. Two examples are presented and discussed: One is drawn from the novel Monnè, outrages et défis (1990) by the prize-winning Ivorian author Ahmadou Kourouma. The other example refers to a job interview of an ethnic minority Dane in Denmark, published in a review by a Danish municipal administration (Århus Kommune) in 2003. The article brings a number of critical literary theories into dialogue in order to discuss two major points. First, the article shows how the chosen theoretical notions can help us to describe what happens in situations of communication where different, and possibly incommensurable, agents and contexts meet and interact in settings that are marked by conceptions of cultural differences. The theories used are Michel Foucault’s discursive formations, Emile Benveniste’s concept of enunciation, Mikhail Bakhtin’s reflexions of contrapuntal narratives, and Homi Bhabha’s theorisation of the anteriority of the sign as it occurs in a disjunctive temporality. Secondly, the article introduces a new interpretative method of how literary texts and critical literary theory may be used within anthropological studies. Instead of focusing on the notion of ‘identities’ and the ensuing conflicts between difference and sameness, this approach focuses on cultural articulations as dynamic communicative processes. In so doing, it situates itself within literary and anthropological theories of representation. Making a close reading of the chosen texts, the article shows that cultural encounters are never merely a question of ‘culture’. Cultural encounters become communicative scenarios where ideas, motives, intentions, and emotions are expressed, interpreted, and received by differently reacting agents.

scholarly journals Introduction

Poetics Today ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Blevins ◽  
Daniel Williams
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Formal Logic ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
New Criticism ◽  
Philosophy Of Literature ◽  
Theory And Criticism ◽  
Reciprocal Influences ◽  
Literary Theory And Criticism

Although literature and logic share a number of surprising symmetries and historical contacts, they have typically been seen to occupy separate disciplinary spheres. Declaring a subfield in literary studies — logic and literature — this introduction outlines various connections between literary formalism and formal logic. It surveys historical interactions and reciprocal influences between literary and logical writers from antiquity through the twentieth century, and it examines how literary theory and criticism have been institutionally shadowed by a logical unconscious, from the New Criticism and (post)structuralism to recent debates about historicism and formalism. It further considers how the subfield of logic and literature, in its constitutive attention to form, is neatly positioned to cut across these debates, and it sketches ways of reading at the interface of aesthetics, philosophy of literature, and literary studies that might be energized by an appeal to logical contexts, ideas, and methods.

scholarly journals Teaching Literature/Studying Literature in Literary Pedagogy and Literary Theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-85
Author(s):  
عبد الفتاح محمد عادل
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
New Criticism ◽  
Teaching Literature ◽  
Student Preparation ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
Theory Of Reading ◽  
Louise Rosenblatt ◽  
Literary Pedagogy ◽  
Academic Interests

Literary studies, in its two sides: teaching literature and studying literature, have suffered from a split in the profession between literary pedagogy and literary theories. A survey of the experience of some famous scholars who have tackled this issue in their writings is conducted to pinpoint the neglect in the part of people specialized in literary studies of the practical side of their work. Two points of convergence between literary pedagogy and literary theory are discussed. The first one presented two cases in which literary pedagogy was highly influenced by the ideas of two major shifts in critical theory: the formalist tendency of New Criticism and the reader-oriented tendency of the reader response approach. The second one discussed the efforts of the American educationalist and theorist Louise Rosenblatt in providing a theory of reading literary works in the light of what takes place in literature classrooms. The conclusions derived from this discussion lead to recommendations concerning the importance of making teaching of literature one of the academic interests and student preparation in departments of literature.

scholarly journals A REVIEW OF THE SIGNIFICANT APPROACHES AND THEORIES OF TRANSLATIONS

2020 ◽  
pp. 10-22
Author(s):  
Urvashi Dave
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
General Review ◽  
Theory And Criticism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post Colonialism ◽  
Theoretical Developments

This paper aims at a general review of the history of translation theories and approaches from past to present. In this research key theoretical developments are taken into consideration, focusing on the approaches of twentieth century. Different theories of translation emerged at diverse periods. As time passes translation studies emerged as sound independent discipline with the development of translation trends like trends as cultural studies, linguistics, literary theory and criticism, brings a renewed aspect to translation theory, post colonialism etc.

Haunted (by the) Gospel: Theology, Trauma, and Literary Theory in the Twenty-First Century

PMLA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 125 (4) ◽  
pp. 936-941 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelly Rambo
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Good News ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Ethical Dimension ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Therapeutic Concept ◽  
Religious Zeal ◽  
Religious Term

At the end of the twentieth century, the expansion of trauma from a therapeutic concept to a way of theorizing about the ruptures of history and memory had, in Geoffrey Hartman's words, added a “displaced evangelical intensity” to literary studies (293). The literary turn to trauma highlighted an ethical dimension to practices of writing, reading, and interpretation; texts were then freighted by violence, called to witness the horrors of history, challenging claims to the clarity and accessibility of words and narrative. Hartman conveys his hesitations about this turn by invoking a religious term—“evangelical”—which is etymologically related to gospel, or “good news.” His concern about an infusion of religious zeal into the study of literature may enact a critical refutation of the historical erasure of Jewish origins by Christian claims to “good news.”

Surviving The Jungle Book: Trans-temporal Ventriloquism in Ian Iqbal Rashid's Surviving Sabu

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 532-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Cristina Mendes
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
First Century ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Temporal Ventriloquism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Political Intervention

The process of screen adaptation is an act of ventriloquism insofar as it gives voice to contemporary anxieties and desires through its trans-temporal use of a source text. Screen adaptations that propose to negotiate meanings about the past, particularly a conflicted past, are acts of ‘trans-temporal ventriloquism’: they adapt and reinscribe pre-existing source texts to animate contemporary concerns and anxieties. I focus on the acts of trans-temporal ventriloquism in Ian Iqbal Rashid's Surviving Sabu (1998), a postcolonial, turn-of-the-twenty-first century short film that adapts Zoltan and Alexander Korda's film The Jungle Book (1942), itself an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's collection of short stories by the same name. Surviving Sabu is about the survival and appropriation of orientalist films as a means of self-expression in a postcolonial present. Inherent in this is the idea of cinema as a potentially redemptive force that can help to balance global power inequalities. Surviving Sabu's return to The Jungle Book becomes a means both of tracing the genealogy of specific orientalist discourses and for ventriloquising contemporary concerns. This article demonstrates how trans-temporal ventriloquism becomes a strategy of political intervention that enables the film-maker to take ownership over existing media and narratives. My argument examines Surviving Sabu as an exemplar of cultural studies of the 1980s and 1990s: a postcolonial remediation built on fantasy and desire, used as a strategy of writing within rather than back to empire.

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