Week 5 & 6

prose fiction examples

• Short Stories

• Legend

• Fairy Tale

• Novels

• Short Stories

• Fables

• Myths

prose fiction

uses basic storytelling techniques that include dialogue, narration and exposition. Not a narrative of reality. conceived by the author

Freytag's Pyramid

exposition, initial action, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution

Exposition

background information of the plot that includes characters and setting.

Initial Action

the very first conflict that occurs in the plot

The climax

the most suspenseful part of the plot. The turning point for the protagonist´s character

falling action

three events (or less) that unravel the conflict between the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist that lead to the resolution

Resolution

Conflict is resolved and we discover whether the protagonist achieves their goal or not.

Dénouement

tying up loose ends

Epic

• 2500 - 3000 years ago

• oldest known literary form (since Antiquity)

• ideal hero (Perseus/Hercules)

• unifies worldview

• rooted in myth, religion, history

• written in episodic form

• often rhymed verse

• closer to fiction than to poetry

Romance

• Middle ages

• individualisation of the protagonist (subjective, not objective)

• personal faults and weakness

• narrow(er) in scope

• linear plot structure

• condensed action

• antique romance in prose, rhymed verse in mediaeval romances

Novel

• developed in Spain in the 17th and England n the 18th C (Servantes - Don Quixote)

• more "realistic" and "individualistic" hero

• rooted in a particular history and geographical reality

• individualised hero (also often as an anti-hero)

• written in unrhymed prose

Famous Epics

- Beowulf (anon. 13th C.)
- The Iliad and The Odyssey (Homer, 7th C. BC)

Famous Romances

• Golden Ass (Apuleius, 2th C. AD)

• Le Morte Darthur (Sir Thimas Mallory)

Famous Novels

• Don Quixote (Miguel Servantes ca. 1610)

• Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe, 1719)

Bildugsroman (novel of education)

• (younger) readers learn something (morally)

• Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1795)

• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens, 1849)

historical novel

Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Waverley (Sir Walter Scott, 1819/1818/1814) Scott is considered by many as the 'inventor' of the historical novel

picaresque novel (Schelmenroman)

• Simplizissimus (Hans Jacob Christoph von Grimmelshausen, 1669)

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1885)

epistolary novel (Briefroman

Clarissa, Pamela (Samuel Richardson, 1740/1748)

picaresque novel (16th C.)

• clever rogue or adventurers

• series of episodes

• satiric n nature

• character is admirable

• hero of low standing, living by their wits in a corrupt society

• bravery, quick thinking and strength

satirical novel

• Gulliver´s Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726)

• The adventures of Huckleberry Finn (M. Twain 1885)

utopian novel/science fiction novel

• 1984 (George Orwell 1949)

• Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1819)

Gothic novel

• The Castle of Otranto (Horace Walpole 1764)

• Dracula (Bram Stroker 1897)

social novel

- Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens 1837)

detective novel

• The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler 1939)

• Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie 1934)

• Giallo - little small detective books

reinvention of printing press

1450s by Gutenberg

The printing press brought to England by...

William Caxton in 1475

The Short Story

• can be read in one sitting

• characteristics: selective, focused narrative perspective, one central character, jumping right into the action (in medias res) and using flashbacks to create the background

short story - biblical stories

• Thousand and One Nights (14th century)

• Decamerone (Giovanni Boccaccio, ca. 1350)

• The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer, ca. 1387)

when became the short story popular

emerged as a popular fictional form at the end of the 18th century (together with the novel and the newspaper)

name two forerunners of modern journals

• Tatler (1709-11)

• Spectator (1711-1714)

Analysing Fiction - Key Terms and Concepts:

• Plot/Story/discourse/narrative:

• Narrative perspectives

• Character & characterization

• Setting & space

• Constructions of Time

Story

chronological sequence of events

the king died and then the queen died.

Plot

the logical structure which connects or doesn't connects these event

the kind died and then the queen dies of grief.

Narrative techniques - flashback:

evoking past events outside of the story which influence the development of the plot (for reasons of space - short story; or for reasons of plot construction)

Narrative techniques - foreshadowing:

anticipating the ending, hinting at things to come possible aim/result: taking away the suspense and directing the reader to how the story is told rather than it's content...

"cracking the mirror"

unified image of man and of society is shattered to uncover the breaks, disillusions and doubts of the modern age

the tradition to manipulate narrative is as old as fiction itself

Metafiction

problematizes the relationship between fiction and reality and the narrative mechanisms of its medium

"fact"

facere (Latin: to do, to make)

"fiction"

ficere (Latin: hearsay, storytelling)

events:

The things that happen in a narrative

existents:

The characters that make things happen, or have things happen to them.

The setting/space; the place where things happen

Discourse analysis:

• How are certain effects are achieved?
• What is the narrative situation?
• Whose point of view is presented?
• Which narrative modes are employed?
• How are the thoughts of characters transmitted?
• How is the chronology of events dealt with?
• How is the style used?

Prose Fiction: plot

• multiple plot lines
• single plot novels
• main plot
• subplot
• tightly plotted... reason and purpose... consequence... suspense
• closed plotted..... All loose ends are tied up. Victorian novels

Narrative situation

• Narrative voice - who speaks

• Focalisation- who sees

homodiegetic narrator

a narrator who is part of the story

heterodiegetic narrator

a narrator who is NOT part of the story but hovers above it and knows everything (similar concept to that of the omniscient narrator)

autodiegetic narrator

a narrator who is part of the story and who is the story's protagonist (similar to the first-person narrator)

diegesis

transmission of a story via a narrator - TELLING what happens

dialogue - telling

mimesis

transmission of a story without the interference of the narrator - SHOWING what happens

mimic - showing

Prose Fiction: narrative voices

Franz K. Stanzel

First Person Narration/First Person Narrator ("Ich-Erzähler")

The story is told by a character in the story from her perspective (aiming to provide an 'authentic' narration from the narrator's subjective perspective (I-as-protagonist vs I-as-witness)

Similar to Genette`s homodiagetic narrator

Authorial Narrator ("auktorialer Erzähler")

The story is told by a character outside of the story who is NOT part of the story herself in the first or third person, sometimes directly addressing the reader omnipresent/omniscient narrator knows everything about the characters and the story and tells it from a god-like perspective (hovering over the narrative)

Similar to Genette`s heterodiagetic narrator

Figural narration ("personale Erzählsituation")

The story is revealed by the actions and utterances of the characters in the story with the narrator moving to the background narration through the "Personal", the cast of the story and their actions - reflecting the fictional world focus can shift between the main character (protagonist) and minor characters

Stream of consciousness

• the narrative shifts from the exterior aspects of the plot to the inner world of the character

• came to prominence in Modernist fiction (with the influence of Freud's psychoanalysis and the shift from the social realism of the 19th century to the focus on the individual's fate and mind in the aftermath of WWI)

INTERNAL Focalisation

within a character

determined by a character's feelings & thoughts

limited information

EXTERNAL Focalisation

focalisation

determined by a character's actions and speech, excluding feelings & thoughts

typified/flat characters:

usually have one specific trait that stands out e.g. mediaeval morality plays ("Everyman", etc.) the "stage Irish"

individualised/round characters:

more rounded individuals, with negative and positive traits, more human that types

TELLING

description of a character through a narrator's voice - explanatory method

SHOWING

portraying a character through her actions and utterances - dramatic method