DOCSLIB.ORG

The Narrative Art of Modernist Fiction a Corpus Stylistic and Cognitive Narratological Approach

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Narrative Art of Modernist Fiction a Corpus Stylistic and Cognitive Narratological Approach View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository The Narrative Art of Modernist Fiction A corpus stylistic and cognitive narratological approach Jian Luo A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English School of English, Drama and American and Canadian Studies The University of Birmingham November 2011 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis explores modernist style of constructing narrative space in a corpus- aided approach. Within Chatman’s theoretical framework, narrative space can be divided into story-space (characters and settings) and discourse-space (framed area to which readers’ attention is directed by the discourse). Ways of spatialisation indicate narrative stylistic features. Therefore, to identify differences between early modernist style of spatialisation and classic modernist one with resort to Lodge’s typology of modern literature, the structuration of the story-space in The Mill on the Floss, The Good Soldier and To the Lighthouse is scrutinised. The findings show that the establishment of settings in Ford’s early modernist novel is sketchy, but sometimes spatially information. By contrast, settings in classic modernist fiction exemplified by Woolf’s novel are clearly symbolic of characters’ psychological states. This demonstrates a strong modernist interest in characters’ interiority. To trace the change in style of spatialisation further, this thesis analyses the construction of characters in the above three novels. The comparison reveals that early modernist characterisation is concerned primarily with characters’ inner life, but sometimes presents their actions, while classic modernist fiction focuses on character’s stream of consciousness. Besides, based on Jakobson’s linguistic theory, a cross-axial model for the examination of discourse-space is built. It helps to detect that, in both Ford’s and Woolf’s novels, the spatial attention shifts between physical world and world of consciousness quickly, which interrupts narrative progression but accommodates the representation of stream of consciousness. The interruption produces an effect comparable to that of a maze and/or montage. This is one remarkable feature of modernist style of spatialisation and, by extension, of modernist narrative art. Acknowledgements The writing of my thesis was an interesting yet lengthy process. Sometimes it seemed difficult to proceed. At those moments, warm-hearted encouragement and expert guidance from my supervisor Professor Michael Toolan heartened me, and helped me overcome those difficulties. Furthermore, my supervisor’s specialised lectures and seminars introduced me to the beauty of cross-disciplinary approaches to literary style, inspiring me to keep gaining knowledge of new developments in stylistics and narratology for a collaborative approach of them to the topic of my thesis. Therefore, I like to express my deep gratitude to Professor Toolan for his academic advice, great help, and continued support in many respects. At the same time, I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to ORS committee and the School of Humanities for an ORS Scholarship and a graduate assistantship. Without this generous award it would hardly have been possible for me to undertake my PhD studies at the University of Birmingham. My former university teacher Professor Jiaoru Qian taught a course in stylistics which attracted me to style studies for the first time at Nanjing University, China. His erudition and excellence in teaching enabled me to learn some essential skills of stylistic analysis. Therefore, I like to express my warm thanks to Professor Qian for his informing lectures that enabled me to make some helpful preparation for my PhD studies in stylistics. Also, I like to thank my wife sincerely for her help in the early stages of my effort to come and pursue doctoral studies at Birmingham. Among my former university classmates and friends to whom I am very thankful for their friendship and moral support, Ning Zhao has been technically very helpful to me. I thank him warmly for his enthusiastic and fantastic help with some computer applications related to my studies. Throughout my years of studies at Birmingham my parents and my brother have shown me profound love, kind care, and great financial help. Therefore, I have been deeply grateful to them for their love, kindness and continued encouragement. It is my sincere wish that my successful completion of PhD study will bring them some delight. Contents List of Figures List of Tables Part I INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1 New Visions of Modernist Fiction ........................................................................... 2 1.1 Modernist fiction revisited ......................................................................................... 2 1.2 Ontological implications of the art of fiction ............................................................. 7 1.3 Research foci: space, sequence, and stream of consciousness ................................. 12 1.4 Ford’s The Good Soldier and Woolf’s To the Lighthouse: two cases of analysis.... 23 1.5 Objectives and structure of thesis ............................................................................ 28 Part II A CROSS-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO MODERNIST FICTION .......... 33 2 Critical approaches to studies of modernist fiction ............................................ 34 2.1 Previous and popular approaches ............................................................................. 34 2.2 Collaboration between corpus stylistics and cognitive narratology: an alternative approach to modernist fiction .................................................................................. 37 2.2.1 Corpus stylistics of modernist fiction: a computer-aided textual study ........... 37 2.2.2 Narratology: its object of study and its founding theory .................................. 40 2.2.3 Application of structuralist theory: analysis of componential elements as a main focus of narratology ................................................................................ 42 2.2.4 Cognitive paradigm shift as a recent development in narratology ................... 45 2.2.5 A cross-disciplinary approach to modernist fiction: corpora and methods ...... 53 Part III EARLY MODERNIST NARRATIVE STYLE IN THE GOOD SOLDIER ....... 59 3 Early modernist narrative style ............................................................................ 60 3.1 Constitution of early modernist narrative style: continuation and transformation ... 60 3.1.1 A literary linguistic viewpoint .......................................................................... 60 3.1.2 Overlapping: a mechanism of narrative style transformation .......................... 66 3.1.3 Early modernist titling: a mixed character ....................................................... 73 4 Story-space in The Good Soldier: sketchy settings .............................................. 77 4.1 Two contrasting styles of spatialisation: modernist economy in The Good Soldier versus realist elaboration in Old Goriot and David Copperfield ............................. 77 4.2 Realist epistemological principle and modernist epistemological thought: different theories of representation ......................................................................................... 83 4.3 Sketchy settings in The Good Soldier: a corpus-aided comparison ......................... 85 5 Story-space in The Good Soldier: multi-layered spatialisation of character ... 103 5.1 Character versus action: a key issue in character analysis ..................................... 103 5.2 An integrated model drawing on contrasting approaches ...................................... 105 5.3 A corpus stylistic-cognitive narratological model for character analysis .............. 108 5.4 Early modernist characterisation through narratorial recollection and supposition 114 5.5 Realist emphasis on verisimilitude: externally focused spatialisation ................... 129 5.6 A dual perspective on character and characterisation ............................................ 139 6 The labyrinthine discourse-space in Ford’s The Good Soldier ......................... 146 6.1 Discourse-space, narrative sequence, and a cross-axial model .............................. 146 6.2 The cross-axial model: a cognitive interpretation and an application .................... 152 6.3 Contextualised interpretation of shift of focus of spatial attention ........................ 156 6.4 Point of view and narrative information in the construction of discourse-space ... 161 6.5 Mechanisms of shift of spatial attention ................................................................ 168 6.6 Rapid perspective switches and resultant
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Stream of Consciousness: a Study of Selected Novels by James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
    This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Italian translations of English stream of consciousness: a study of selected novels by James Joyce and Virginia Woolf Giulia Totò PhD The University of Edinburgh 2014 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis was composed by myself, that the work contained herein is my own except where explicitly stated otherwise in the text, and that this work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified. Giulia Totò iii To little Emma and Lucio, for the immense joy they spread and the love they allow me to return. iv Acknowledgments I am pleased to take this opportunity to thank my supervisors Federica G. Pedriali and Yves Gambier for their guidance and, most of all, for their support and patience during these years.
    [Show full text]
  • MODERN BRITISH LITERATURE (C. 1900 to 1950) READING LIST
    MODERN BRITISH LITERATURE (c. 1900 to 1950) READING LIST Please note that there are two lists below. The first is the full list with the core readings in bold; the second is the core list separated out. You are responsible for all core readings and may incorporate readings from the full list into your tailored list. Unless otherwise noted, selections separated by commas indicate all works students should know. A. FICTION Beckett, Samuel. One of the following: Murphy, Watt, Molloy Bennett, Arnold. Clayhanger Bowen, Elizabeth. The Heat of the Day Butler, Samuel. The Way of All Flesh Chesterton, G.K. The Man Who Was Thursday Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness AND one of: Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes Ford, Ford Madox. The Good Soldier Forster, E. M. Howards End, A Passage to India (plus the essays “What I Believe” and “The Challenge of Our Times” in Two Cheers for Democracy) Galsworthy, John. The Man of Property Greene, Graham. One of: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Joyce, James. Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses Kipling, Rudyard. Kim Lawrence, D. H. Two of: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, The Rainbow, The Plumed Serpent Lewis, Wyndham. Tarr, manifestos in BLAST 1 Mansfield, Katherine. “Prelude,” “At the Bay,” “The Garden Party,” “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” (in Collected Stories) Orwell, George. 1984 (or Aldous Huxley, Brave New World) Wells, H. G. One of the following: Ann Veronica, Tono-Bungay, The New Machiavelli West, Rebecca.
    [Show full text]
  • VS. Naipaul: a Bibliographical Update (198 7-94)
    VS. Naipaul: A Bibliographical Update (198 7-94) KELVIN JARVIS JLHIS IS A bibliographical update of my V. S. Naipaul: A Selective Bibliography with Annotations: 195J-198J, covering the period 1987-94. Since 1 g87 (when An Enigma of Arrival: A Novel in Five Sections appeared), Naipaul has published three books—A Turn in the South ( 1989), India: A Million Mutinies Now ( 1990), and A Way in the World ( 1994)—and more than 18 substantial pieces, in addition to delivering various lectures and acceptance speeches. This checklist is arranged in six parts. Part I contains Naipaul's most recent writings and comments, listed under three head• ings: published books, articles, and interviews, with entries given chronologically. Part II covers recent bibliographical listings of his work. Part III includes 16 full-length books written about him. Part PV lists articles on him in books, reference volumes, journals, and magazines. Part V has book reviews and critical studies of his individual books. And Part VI itemizes doctoral theses exclu• sively or partly on him. Conference papers have featured prominently in the spate of attention Naipaul continues to generate; these papers are usu• ally quite elusive to trace, particularly if they are not published collectively and within a reasonably short time frame. Thus this checklist omits offerings on Naipaul from conferences and all foreign-language citations. It also excludes newspaper articles with imprints prior to 1987. The Enigma of Arrival spans Naipaul's life in England and echoes a finality in his writing career. The protagonist of this novel writes: "with time passing, I felt mocked by what I had already done; it seemed to belong to a time of vigour, now past for good.
    [Show full text]
  • Post-War English Literature 1945-1990
    Post-War English Literature 1945-1990 Sara Martín Alegre P08/04540/02135 © FUOC • P08/04540/02135 Post-War English Literature 1945-1990 Index Introduction............................................................................................... 5 Objectives..................................................................................................... 7 1. Literature 1945-1990: cultural context........................................ 9 1.1. The book market in Britain ........................................................ 9 1.2. The relationship between Literature and the universities .......... 10 1.3. Adaptations of literary works for television and the cinema ...... 11 1.4. The minorities in English Literature: women and post-colonial writers .................................................................... 12 2. The English Novel 1945-1990.......................................................... 14 2.1. Traditionalism: between the past and the present ..................... 15 2.2. Fantasy, realism and experimentalism ........................................ 16 2.3. The post-modern novel .............................................................. 18 3. Drama in England 1945-1990......................................................... 21 3.1. West End theatre and the new English drama ........................... 21 3.2. Absurdist drama and social and political drama ........................ 22 3.3. New theatre companies and the Arts Council ............................ 23 3.4. Theatre from the mid-1960s onwards .......................................
    [Show full text]
  • Out of Style: Reanimating Stylistic Study in Composition and Rhetoric
    Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 2008 Out of Style: Reanimating Stylistic Study in Composition and Rhetoric Paul Butler Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Recommended Citation Butler, Paul, "Out of Style: Reanimating Stylistic Study in Composition and Rhetoric" (2008). All USU Press Publications. 162. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/162 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 6679-0_OutOfStyle.ai79-0_OutOfStyle.ai 5/19/085/19/08 2:38:162:38:16 PMPM C M Y CM MY CY CMY K OUT OF STYLE OUT OF STYLE Reanimating Stylistic Study in Composition and Rhetoric PAUL BUTLER UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Logan, Utah 2008 Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 84322–7800 © 2008 Utah State University Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-87421-679-0 (paper) ISBN: 978-0-87421-680-6 (e-book) “Style in the Diaspora of Composition Studies” copyright 2007 from Rhetoric Review by Paul Butler. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC., http:// www. informaworld.com. Manufactured in the United States of America. Cover design by Barbara Yale-Read. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data Butler, Paul, Out of style : reanimating stylistic study in composition and rhetoric / Paul Butler. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
    [Show full text]
  • A Stylistic Approach to the God of Small Things Written by Arundhati Roy
    Lingnan University Digital Commons @ Lingnan University Theses & Dissertations Department of English 2007 A stylistic approach to the God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy Wing Yi, Monica CHAN Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.ln.edu.hk/eng_etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Chan, W. Y. M. (2007). A stylistic approach to the God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy (Master's thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.14793/eng_etd.2 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at Digital Commons @ Lingnan University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Lingnan University. Terms of Use The copyright of this thesis is owned by its author. Any reproduction, adaptation, distribution or dissemination of this thesis without express authorization is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved. A STYLISTIC APPROACH TO THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS WRITTEN BY ARUNDHATI ROY CHAN WING YI MONICA MPHIL LINGNAN UNIVERSITY 2007 A STYLISTIC APPROACH TO THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS WRITTEN BY ARUNDHATI ROY by CHAN Wing Yi Monica A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in English Lingnan University 2007 ABSTRACT A Stylistic Approach to The God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy by CHAN Wing Yi Monica Master of Philosophy This thesis presents a creative-analytical hybrid production in relation to the stylistic distinctiveness in The God of Small Things, the debut novel of Arundhati Roy.
    [Show full text]
  • CHARACTERIZATION in FICTION HONORS THESIS Presented to The
    CHARACTERIZATION IN FICTION HONORS THESIS Presented to the Honors Committee of Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation in the Honors College by Jack Reams San Marcos, Texas May 2015 CHARACTERIZATION IN FICTION Thesis Supervisor: ________________________________ John M. Blair, Ph.D. Department of English Second Reader: __________________________________ Twister Marquiss, M.F.A Department of English Approved: ____________________________________ Heather C. Galloway, Ph.D. Dean, Honors College Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................2 P.A.R.T.S of Characterization .............................................................................................4 Direct Characterization ......................................................................................................15 Indirect Characterization ....................................................................................................30 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................43 Abstract The purpose of my thesis is to examine the importance of characterization in fiction, as well as the methods of characterization itself. The scope of the paper will be primarily limited to three works of
    [Show full text]
  • 2013 Summer Reading List
    SUMMER READING LIST 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 2 MIDDLE SCHOOL Grades 6 and 7 3 Grade 8 11 UPPER SCHOOL General Requirements 16 New International Students 17 Literature and Composition I Required 18 Literature and Composition I Recommended 19 Literature and Composition II Required 26 Literature and Composition II Recommended 26 Grades 11 and 12 Required 35 Literature and Composition III 35 AP English Language 37 The Short Story: Read It and Write It 38 The Tradition of the Novel 38 Found Voices 39 AP English Literature 39 Grades 11 and 12 Recommended 40 Language Books 57 Social Studies Books 60 INTRODUCTION ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• All students at Dana Hall are required to complete summer reading. The books you read will be used in your English class during the first few weeks of the first trimester. As you read, we urge you to remember that the art of reading is a creative act, a collaboration between reader and writer. Hold a dialogue with these books: question, argue, disagree; underline those passages that exhilarate you as well as those that infuriate you. Keep a notebook to jot down your imme- diate responses to each of these works and write questions that you want to discuss in your English classes. Encourage your family and friends to join you in these reading experiences. A number of the books on this list have been made into movies, many of them wonderful in their own right. Seeing a movie instead of reading the book, however, will not prepare you for your teacher’s assignment related to that book, nor will it replace the unique experience of interacting with a specific text.
    [Show full text]
  • Tristram Shandy: an Original and Profound English Novel of The
    Tristram Shandy : An Original and Profound English Novel of the Eighteenth Century Oana-Roxana Ivan West University of Timişoara [email protected] Abstract Although Tristram Shandy holds a place among the English novels, it is hard to call it an eighteen century novel. Nevertheless, Sterne’s novel shares with much other eighteenth-century English prose two important formal elements, the publicly oriented narrator and the conversational style. Tristram Shandy is a typical eighteenth-century work, first, in its being told by a self-conscious narrator who is publicly and socially oriented. A further way in which Sterne’s novel is in keeping with its time is the wonderfully conversational style – one proper, of course, to the narrators’ public and social orientations. However, the present paper proves that the author has employed these common devices of the century in two crucially different ways which make the novel as unconventional as always. Key words: anti-novel, anti-hero, ‘order in disorder’, innovation, style Laurence Sterne is considered to be an unconventional writer who has attracted the most diverse opinions from both his readers and literary critics. His mostly appreciated work is the novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman , a nine volume work published during a period of ten years (1759-1769). While it was criticized for its boring structure, bawdy tales and ludicrous dialogue, Tristram Shandy is appreciated for its wit, satire, fun, pathos and humanism. Twentieth century critics have added appraisals for its musical structure, digressive art, and subversive post-modernist techniques. The character’s faith has been as strange and whimsical as the novel itself.
    [Show full text]
  • Bridging the Voices of Hard-Boiled Detective and Noir Crime Fiction
    Christopher Mallon TEXT Vol 19 No 2 Swinburne University of Technology Christopher Mallon Crossing shadows: Bridging the voices of hard-boiled detective and noir crime fiction Abstract This paper discusses the notion of Voice. It attempts to articulate the nature of voice in hard-boiled detective fiction and noir crime fiction. In doing so, it examines discusses how these narrative styles, particularly found within private eye novels, explores aspects of the subjectivity as the narrator- investigator; and, thus crossing and bridging a cynical, hard-boiled style and an alienated, reflective voice within a noir world. Keywords: hard-boiled detective fiction, noir fiction, voice, authenticity Introduction In crime fiction, voice is an integral aspect of the narrative. While plot, characters, and setting are, of course, also instrumental in providing a sense of authenticity to the text, voice brings a sense of verisimilitude and truth to the fiction the author employs. Thus, this paper discusses the nature of voice within the tradition of the crime fiction subgenres of noir and hard-boiled detective literature. In doing so, it examines how voice positions the protagonist; his subjectivity as the narrator-investigator; and, the nature of the hardboiled voice within a noir world. Establishing authenticity The artistic, literary, and aesthetic movement of Modernism, during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, describes a consciousness of despair, disorder, and anarchy, through ‘the intellectual conventions of plight, alienation, and nihilism’
    [Show full text]
  • Glossary of Literary Terms
    Glossary of Critical Terms for Prose Adapted from “LitWeb,” The Norton Introduction to Literature Study Space http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/litweb10/glossary/C.aspx Action Any event or series of events depicted in a literary work; an event may be verbal as well as physical, so that speaking or telling a story within the story may be an event. Allusion A brief, often implicit and indirect reference within a literary text to something outside the text, whether another text (e.g. the Bible, a myth, another literary work, a painting, or a piece of music) or any imaginary or historical person, place, or thing. Ambiguity When we are involved in interpretation—figuring out what different elements in a story “mean”—we are responding to a work’s ambiguity. This means that the work is open to several simultaneous interpretations. Language, especially when manipulated artistically, can communicate more than one meaning, encouraging our interpretations. Antagonist A character or a nonhuman force that opposes, or is in conflict with, the protagonist. Anticlimax An event or series of events usually at the end of a narrative that contrast with the tension building up before. Antihero A protagonist who is in one way or another the very opposite of a traditional hero. Instead of being courageous and determined, for instance, an antihero might be timid, hypersensitive, and indecisive to the point of paralysis. Antiheroes are especially common in modern literary works. Archetype A character, ritual, symbol, or plot pattern that recurs in the myth and literature of many cultures; examples include the scapegoat or trickster (character type), the rite of passage (ritual), and the quest or descent into the underworld (plot pattern).
    [Show full text]
  • Download Page (PDF)
    English 1 ENGL 2020 Introduction to Creative Writing: 3 semester hours English Prerequisites: ENGL 1100 or equivalent. This course is a creative writing survey and workshop focusing on the study of three genres-short fiction, Courses poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students learn primary concepts and techniques of craft, including narrative, voice, character, setting, imagery, ENGL 1030 Beginning Creative Writing: 3 semester hours metaphor, point-of-view. Students will explore literary conventions specific This course introduces students to the building blocks of creative writing to each genre, as well as universal qualities that make all writing effective and the writing workshop classroom. Students will explore how creative for an audience. The course requires three different kinds of writing: brief writers decide what material is best suited for a story, an essay, or a analytic essays, open-ended exploratory exercises, and carefully-revised poem. Pairing creativity with critical thinking, the course offers basic writing original work. This course fulfills the core requirement in Creative Writing practice and familiarizes students with primary concepts and techniques of and counts toward the Certificate in Writing. craft (e.g. narrative, point-of-view, voice and style, character development, ENGL 2030 Poetry Writing Jumpstart: 3 semester hours setting, imagery, and figurative language). Prerequisites: ENGL 1100 or equivalent. This course provides new poets, ENGL 1100 First-Year Writing (MOTR ENGL 200): 3 semester hours would-be poets, and curious non-poets with exercises, experiments, and Integrates critical reading, writing, and thinking skills and studies actual activities to explore two questions: what is a poem, and how does one writing practices.
    [Show full text]