scholarly journals The Author’s Narrative Strategy in the Book I of Xenophon’s “Cyropaedia”

2018 ◽  
pp. 71-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fedir Dovbyshchenko
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Reader Response ◽  
Golden Section ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Theoretical Base ◽  
Narrative Strategy ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Reader Response Criticism ◽  
The Given ◽  
Structured Communication

The article deals with the text of the book I of Xenophon’s “Cyropaedia”. A brief description of the most significant previous studies of the “Cyropaedia” as a literary work is given. The text is analyzed within the frames of narratology and reader-response criticism. The theoretical base of these approaches is shown concisely in the beginning of the article. The notions of narrator (primary, secondary, tertiary), narratee, author, reader, ideal recipient, pre-intent, lacuna, peripeteia, golden section, lingual strategy, narrative strategy are being defined as the main notions of the present investigation. The study of the author’s narrative strategy supposes a distinction between authorial and narratorial communication with its further comparison. The analysis of a double-structured communication is possible thanks to the study of the given fragment [Cyrop. I.4.27]. It draws the attention because it is unusual if compared with the rest of the book I, the narratorial communication lacks logics in this very fragment. The assumption that the fragment could be a key for understanding the authorial communication is proved by the analysis of the whole book I within the frames of narratology and reader-response criticism. Finding lacunas in reader’s reception of the text as well as observation of their place and role in each case allows to conclude that [Cyrop. I.4.27] is a cornerstone of the whole book I of the “Cyropaedia”. The lacuna this fragment provides to the reader ruins absolutely the image of Cyrus, which the author of narration tries to persuade us to be real. It is proved that the present fragment is, in addition, a moment of peripeteia and of golden section it the structure of the book I which is similar to that of the ancient tragedy. The conclusions of the present article give way to a thorough narratological analysis of the whole “Cyporaedia” of Xenophon.

Art and truth

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Actual World ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Real Thing ◽  
Madame Bovary ◽  
Truth In Fiction ◽  
The World ◽  
Concept Of Truth ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Given

Some things are true within the world of a literary work. It is true, in the world evoked by Madame Bovary, that Emma Roualt married Charles Bovary. In this entry, however, we are not concerned with truth in fiction but rather with what it is for a work of art to be true of, or true to, the actual world. Representational works represent states of affairs, or objects portrayed in a certain way. The concept of truth naturally gets a grip here, because we can ask whether the represented state of affairs actually exists in the world, or whether a represented object exists and really is the way it is represented to be, or whether a representation of a kind of thing offers a genuinely representative example of that kind. If so, we could call the work true, or true in the given respect. A work will often get us to respond to what is portrayed in a way similar to what our response would have been to the real thing – we are moved to fear and pity by objects we know are merely fictions. But a work could also portray characters responding in certain ways to the imaginary situations it conjures, often with the implication that the response is a likely human emotional or practical response to that situation, or a response to be expected of a character of the given type, and we could reasonably call the work true if we believed the portrayed reaction was a likely one. Arguably, if we judge a work to be in some respect true to life, we must already have known that life was like that in order to make the judgment. But, interestingly, works of art appear to be able to portray situations that we have not experienced, in which the portrayal seems to warrant our saying that the work has shown (that is, taught) us a likely or plausible unfolding of the portrayed situation, or shown us what it would have been like to experience the situation. It is also said, especially of narrative fiction, that, because of its power to show us what various alternative imaginary situations would be like, it can enlighten us about how we ought to live. So we may consider how a work of art might be a vehicle of truths about the actual world. This gives rise to a further question – sometimes called the problem of belief – of whether the value of a work of art as a piece of art is related to its truth. If a work implies or suggests that something is the case, ought I to value it more highly as art if I accept what it implies as the truth? Alternatively, should I take it as an aesthetic shortcoming if I do not?

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