Jan Alber

Brian Richardson

Henrik Skov Nielsen

A Poetics of Unnatural Narrative offers a collection of foundational essays introducing the reader to the full scope of unnatural narrative theory: its meaning, its goals, its extent, its paradoxes. This volume brings together a distinguished group of international critics, scholars, and historians that includes several of the world's leading narrative theorists. Together, they survey many basic areas of narrative studies from an unnatural perspective: story, time, space, voice, minds, narrative levels, "realism," nonfiction, hyperfiction, and narrative poetry. Rarely have these fundamental concepts been subjected to such an original and thoroughgoing reconceptualization. Much of the book is directed toward an investigation of experimental and antirealist work. Each essay focuses on texts and episodes that narrative theory has tended to neglect, and each provides theoretical formulations that are commensurate with such exceptional, albeit neglected, works. A Poetics of Unnatural Narrative articulates and delineates the newest and most radical movement in narrative studies. This anthology will be of great interest to students and scholars of narrative studies and of the history and theory of modern fiction.

A Poetics of Unnatural Narrative

Stefan Iversen

Per Krogh Hansen

Rolf Reitan

From its beginnings narratology has incorporated a communicative model of literary narratives, considering these as simulations of natural, oral acts of communication. This approach, however, has had some problems with accounting for the strangeness and anomalies of modern and postmodern narratives. As many skeptics have shown, not even classical realism conforms to the standard set by oral or ‘natural’ storytelling. Thus, an urge to confront narratology with the difficult task of reconsidering a most basic premise in its theoretical and analytical endeavors has, for some time, been undeniable. During the 2000s, Nordic narratologists have been among the most active and insistent critics of the communicative model. They share a marked skepticism towards the idea of using ‘natural’ narratives as a model for understanding and interpreting all kinds of narratives, and for all of them, the distinction of fiction is of vital importance. This anthology presents a collection of new articles that deal with strange narratives, narratives of the strange, or, more generally, with the strangeness of fiction, and even with some strange aspects of narratology.

Strange Voices in Narrative Fiction

Louise Brix Jacobsen

Rikke Andersen Kraglund

Camilla Mohring Reestorff

This book presents new ways of thinking about the historical, epistemological and institutional role of literature, and aims at providing a theoretically well-founded basis for what might otherwise be considered a relatively unfounded historical fact, i.e. that both literature and the teaching of literature hold a privileged position in many educational institutions. The contributors take their point of departure in the title of the volume and use narratological, historical, cognitive, rhetorical, postcolonial and political frameworks to pursue two separate but not necessarily related questions: Why literature? and, Why study? This collection brings together theoretical studies and critical analyses on literature as a medium among, and compared to, other media and includes essays on the physical and mental geography of literature, focusing on the consequences and values of its reading and studying.

Why Study Literature?

Stefan Kjerdegaard

Mord, hor og ord. Nar Steen Steensen Blicher, Bret Easton Ellis og Jorgen Leth skriver om sex og vold med henholdsvis Steen Steensen Blicher, Bret Easton Ellis og Jorgen Leth som stAerkt involverede deltagere, er det sa litterAer fiktion eller underskrevne tilstaelser? Sporgsmal som disse har ikke mindst de senere ar sat hede debatter i gang i Danmark. Selvskreven - Om litterAer selvfremstilling er en bog om forholdet mellem vAerk og forfatter i krydsfeltet mellem fiktion og virkelighed. Forholdet problematiseres stAerkt fra mindst to sider i teori og praksis i dag. Ofte finder man for meget forfatter i fiktionen, men ogsa for meget fiktion i selvbiografierne til at det passer ind i gAengse opfattelser og teoridannelser. Det gor, at sporgsmalet om forholdet mellem vAerk og forfatter rejses pa nye mader. I bogen gor skribenterne rede for teorier og strategier i sadanne hybride vAerker og forfatterskaber. Teoretiske artikler om forholdet mellem forfatter og fortAeller og mellem fx referentialitet og rejseskildring veksler med mere lAesningsorienterede analyser af enkeltvAerker. LAesninger af aktuelle danske og udenlandske vAerker som Jorgen Leths Det uperfekte menneske og Dag Solstads 16.07.41 Romangiver sammen med analyser af forfattere som Hoeg og Hojholt anledning til at kaste nyt lys over kanoniserede, Aeldre forfattere som Bang og Blicher.

Henrik Skov Nielsen

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