Narratives and Narrators
A Philosophy of Stories
Published on 18. February 2010
Book
Hardback
266 pages
978-0-19-928260-9 (ISBN)
Description
Narratives are artefacts of a special kind: they are intentionally crafted devices which fulfil their story-telling function by manifesting the intentions of their makers. But narrative itself is too inclusive a category for much more to be said about it than this; we should focus attention instead on the vaguely defined but interesting category of things rich in narrative structure. Such devices offer significant possibilities, not merely for the representation of stories, but for the expression of point of view; they have also played an important role in the evolution of reliable communication. Narratives and narrators argues that much of the pleasure of narrative communication depends on deep-seated and early developing tendencies in human beings to imitation and to joint attention, and imitation turns out to be the key to understanding such important literary techniques as free indirect discourse and character-focused narration. The book also examines irony in narrative, with an emphasis on the idea of the expression of ironic points of view. It looks closely at the idea of character, or robust, situation-independent ways of acting and thinking, as it is represented in narrative. It asks whether scepticism about the notion of character should have us reassess the dramatic and literary tradition which places such emphasis on character.
Reviews / Votes
Rich with examples drawn from both literature and film ... the book makes an interesting and important contribution not only to our understanding of the nature of narratives but also to the nature of our engagement with them. * Amy Kind, The Philosophical Quarterly * a rich study. * Adriana Boneta, Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory * abounds in analyses and arguments as Currie identifies and interrogates (generally successfully) strong counter-theses that challenge his own * Daniel D. Hutto, Times Literary Supplement * I expect Gregory Currie's new book, Narratives and Narrators, to attain the same importance and influence in philosophical thinking about narrative that his earlier books The Nature of Fiction and Image and Mind have had in the philosophy of fiction and film, respectively. It is an ambitious, careful, and philosophically rich work containing a number of novel and important arguments... The book has many virtues, and the greatest of them might be that it opens up new areas for exploration in the philosophic study of narrative. * James Harold, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * The book is ambitious in its topics and contains fresh approaches to various traditional problems ... full of thought-provoking arguments and intriguing proposals. * Jukka Mikkonen, Mind * This fairly short book does a lot of work ... consistently challenging * Raphael Lyne, Cambridge Quarterly *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
1 half tone
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
567 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-928260-9 (9780199282609)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
02/2012
Oxford University Press
€60.40
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Gregory Currie is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham.
Content
Preface ; Acknowledgements ; Analytical contents ; 1. Representation ; 2. The content of narrative ; 3. Two ways of looking at a narrative ; 4. Authors and narrators ; 5. Expression and imitation ; 6. Resistance ; 7. Character-focused narration ; 8. Irony: a pretended point of view ; 9. Dis-interpretation ; 10. Narrative and character ; 11. Character scepticism ; In Conclusion ; Bibliography ; Indexes