| CODE | ENG2177 | ||||||||
| TITLE | Practical Criticism: Narrative | ||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 02 - Years 2, 3 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 5 | ||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 2 | ||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | English | ||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | The purpose of the study-unit is to guide students in the theory and practice of narratology. Narratology is concerned with the theory, discourse, and critique of narrative. Although the study of narrative has a long and varied history dating back at least as far as Aristotle’s Poetics, it came into its own as an area of interest with the structural analysis of narrative in the twentieth century. This study-unit will address the use and function of the term ‘narratology’ and outline its development in the twentieth century. The range of reference takes in Levi-Strauss’ notion of myths as variations on single fundamental themes; Propp’s and Greimas’ insights on the variations on characters and roles; repetition, variation and difference in Bremond; the deep level generative aspect of plot in Greimas; discussions of fabula and sjuzet as well the notion of Fictional, Possible and Real Worlds in the work of Eco and Pavel; the forms of genre and narrative in Todorov; the paratext and the ordering of time in narrative forms in Genette. We will also trace the way in which French structuralism extrapolated narrative from fiction, and identified it as a semiotic phenomenon that transcends disciplines and media. The accompanying semantic expansion of the term eventually also freed it from association with textuality. Narratology, specifically Jean-Francois Lyotard’s notion of ‘Grand Narrative’, is a key concept in postmodernist thought concerning the status of truth and knowledge in society, and this too will be taken into account. Reading List: Readings may include extracts from, but are not limited to, the following: Aristotle’s Poetics [available in various collections and editions] Bal, Mieke, Narratology, trans. Christine van Boheemen (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997) Booth, Wayne, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 2nd edn (London: Penguin, 1991) Bremond, Claude, Logique du recit (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973) Greimas, A.-J., and Joseph Courtes, Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary, trans. Larry Christ and Daniel Patte (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979) Eco, Umberto, The Role of the Reader: Explorations into the Semiotics of Texts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978) Eco, Umberto, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994) Genette, Gérard, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980) Levi-Strauss, Claude, Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (London: Allen Lane, 1963) Onega, Susan, and José Angel Garcia Landa, eds, Narratology: An Introduction (London: Longman, 1996) Pavel, Thomas, Fictional Worlds (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986) Propp, Vladimir, The Morphology of the Folktale, trans. Laurence Scott (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968) Todorov, Tzvetan, Introduction to Poetics, trans. Richard Howard (Minnesota: Minnesota University Press, 1981) |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Marija Grech |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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