Narrative Discourse: Authors and Narrators in Literature, Film, and Art

by Patrick Colm Hogan

Overview

In Narrative Discourse: Authors and Narrators in Literature, Film, and Art, Patrick Colm Hogan reconsiders fundamental issues of authorship and narration in light of recent research in cognitive and affective science. He begins with a detailed overview of the components of narrative discourse, both introducing and reworking key principles. Based on recent studies treating the complexity of human cognition, Hogan presents a new account of implied authorship that solves some notorious problems with that concept.   In subsequent chapters Hogan takes the view that implied authorship is both less unified and more unified than is widely recognized. In connection with this notion, he examines how we can make interpretive sense of the inconsistencies of implied authors within works and the continuities of implied authors across works. Turning to narrators, he considers some general principles of readers’ judgments about reliability, emphasizing the emotional element of trust. Following chapters take up the operation of complex forms of narration, including parallel narration, embedded narration, and collective voicing (“we” narration). In the afterword, Hogan sketches some subtleties at the other end of narrative communication, considering implied readers and narratees. In order to give greater scope to the analyses, Hogan develops case studies from painting and film as well as literature, treating art by Rabindranath Tagore; films by David Lynch, Bimal Roy, and Kabir Khan; and literary works by Mirabai, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Margaret Atwood, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Joseph Diescho.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814255094
Publisher:	Ohio State University Press
Publication date:	11/10/2018
Series:	Theory and Interpretation of Narrative
Edition description:	1
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Patrick Colm Hogan is a professor in the English Department and the programs in comparative literature and cultural studies, India studies, and cognitive science at the University of Connecticut.

Table of Contents

Introduction Discourse Analysis and Narration Chapter 1 Who Is Speaking to Whom: The Communicative Discourse of Narrative Art Chapter 2 Cross-Textual Implied Painters and Cinematic Auteurs: Rabindranath Tagore’s Paintings and Bimal Roy’s MadhumatiChapter 3 Authors, Implied and Implicated: Explaining Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Kabir Khan’s New YorkChapter 4 Narrative Reliability: Margaret Atwood’s SurfacingChapter 5 Varieties of Multiple Narration (I): Parallel Narrators in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and David Lynch’s Mulholland DriveChapter 6 Varieties of Multiple Narration (II): Embedded Narration, Focalization, and Collective Voicing in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood and Born of the Sun by Joseph Diescho (with Celeste Wallin) Afterword A Note on Implied Readers and Narratees: Mirabai’s “Even if you break off, beloved, I would not”

Editorial Reviews

Narrative Discourse: Authors and Narrators in Literature, Film, and Art is a remarkably transformative contribution to narrative theory and an important account of the nature and purpose of literary criticism more generally. It is full of useful distinctions and compelling readings of major texts.” —Jesse Matz, associate professor of English, Kenyon College

From the Publisher