In the first two volumes of this work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing, fiction, and theories of literature. This final volume, a comprehensive reexamination and synthesis of the ideas developed in volumes 1 and 2, stands as Ricoeur's most complete and satisfying presentation of his own philosophy.

Time and Narrative

What is narrative? How does it work and how does it shape our lives? H. Porter Abbott emphasizes that narrative is found not just in literature, film, and theatre, but everywhere in the ordinary course of people's lives. This widely used introduction, now revised and expanded in its third edition, is informed throughout by recent developments in the field and includes one new chapter. The glossary and bibliography have been expanded, and new sections explore unnatural narrative, retrograde narrative, reader-resistant narratives, intermedial narrative, narrativity, and multiple interpretation. With its lucid exposition of concepts, and suggestions for further reading, this book is not only an excellent introduction for courses focused on narrative but also an invaluable resource for students and scholars across a wide range of fields, including literature and drama, film and media, society and politics, journalism, autobiography, history, and still others throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative

A pioneering attempt to relate the theory of literary fiction to a more general theory of fiction, using fictions of apocalypse as a model. This pioneering exploration of the relationship of fiction to age-old conceptions of chaos and crisis offers many new insights into some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas. Examining the works of a wide range of writers from Plato to William Burroughs, Kermode demonstrates how writers have persistently imposed their \"fictions\" upon the face of eternity and how these have reflected the apocalyptic spirit.

Frank Kermode and the Invented World@@@The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction

Narrative forms of communication—including entertainment education, journalism, literature, testimonials, and storytelling—are emerging as important tools for cancer prevention and control. To stimulate critical thinking about the role of narrative in cancer communication and promote a more focused and systematic program of research to understand its effects, we propose a typology of narrative application in cancer control. We assert that narrative has four distinctive capabilities: overcoming resistance, facilitating information processing, providing surrogate social connections, and addressing emotional and existential issues. We further assert that different capabilities are applicable to different outcomes across the cancer control continuum (e.g., prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship). This article describes the empirical evidence and theoretical rationale supporting propositions in the typology, identifies variables likely to moderate narrative effects, raises ethical issues to be addressed when using narrative communication in cancer prevention and control efforts, and discusses potential limitations of using narrative in this way. Future research needs based on these propositions are outlined and encouraged.

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Narrative communication in cancer prevention and control: A framework to guide research and application

This article offers a theoretical framework to explain circumstances under which perceptions of “unrealness” affect engagement in narratives and subsequent perceived realism judgments. A mental models approach to narrative processing forms the foundation of a model that integrates narrative comprehension and phenomenological experiences such as transportation and identification. Three types of unrealness are discussed: fictionality, external realism (match with external reality), and narrative realism (coherence within a story). We gather evidence that fictionality does not affect narrative processing. On the other hand, violations of external and narrative realism are conceived as inconsistencies among the viewer’s mental structures as they construct mental models of meaning to represent and comprehend the narrative. These inconsistencies may result in negative online evaluations of a narrative’s realism, may disrupt engagement, and may negatively influence postexposure (reflective) realism judgments as well as lessen a narrative’s persuasive power.

Resume

« Fictionnalite» et realisme percu des histoires : Un modele de comprehension et d'implication narratives



Cet article propose un cadre theorique visant a expliquer les circonstances dans lesquelles les perceptions d’« irrealite» affectent l’implication dans les narratifs et les jugements subsequents de perception de realisme. Une approche par modeles mentaux du traitement des narratifs forme la base d’un modele qui integre la comprehension narrative et les experiences phenomenologiques telles que le transport et l’identification. Trois types d’irrealite sont commentes : la « fictionnalite», le realisme externe (concordance avec une realite externe) et le realisme narratif (coherence d’une histoire). Nous reunissons ici des preuves a l’effet que la fictionnalite n’affecte pas le traitement narratif. D’autre part, les violations des realismes externe et narratif sont percues comme des incoherences dans les structures mentales des spectateurs, puisque ceux-ci construisent des modeles mentaux de significations afin de representer et comprendre le narratif. Ces incoherences peuvent avoir pour resultats des evaluations negatives du realisme d’un narratif sur le coup. Elles peuvent egalement interrompre l’implication, influencer negativement les jugements de realisme a posteriori (jugements reflexifs) et amoindrir la puissance persuasive d’un narratif.

Abstract

Fiktionalitat und wahrgenommener Realismus beim Erleben von Geschichten: Ein Modell zum narrativen Verstehen und Erleben



Dieser Artikel bietet einen theoretischen Rahmen, um Bedingungen zu erklaren unter denen die Wahrnehmung von Unwirklichkeit die Art und Weise des Erlebens von Geschichten und daraus resultierend Realismusurteile beeinflusst. Unter Ruckgriff auf einen Mentale-Modelle-Ansatz zur Verarbeitung von Narrationen werden narratives Verstehen und phanomenologische Erlebensweisen wie Transportation und Identifikation im Modell integriert. Drei Typen von Unwirklichkeit werden diskutiert: Fiktionalitat, externaler Realismus (Passung mit der externalen Realitat) und narrativer Realismus (Stimmigkeit mit der Geschichte). Unsere Daten zeigen, dass Fiktionalitat die narrative Verarbeitung nicht beeinflusst. Allerdings wird deutlich, dass Verletzungen des externalen und narrativen Realismus als Inkonsistenzen in den mentalen Strukturen der Zuschauer wahrgenommen werden, da Zuschauer mentale Bedeutungsmodelle konstruieren, um die Geschichte abzubilden und zu verstehen. Diese Inkonsistenzen konnten in negativen Ad-Hoc-Bewertungen von narrativem Realismus resultieren, konnten Erleben storen oder postrezeptive (reflektierende) Realismusurteile negativ beeinflussen - und letztendlich die persuasive Kraft der Narration verringern.

Resumen

La Ficcion y el Realismo Percibido en la Experiencia de las Historias: Un Modelo de la Comprension y el Compromiso Narrativo



Este articulo ofrece un marco teorico para explicar las circumstancias bajo las cuales las percepciones de “irrealismo” afectan el compromiso de las narrativas y los juicios de las percepciones de realismo subsequente. Un modelo mental de aproximacion de los procesamientos narrativos forma un modelo fundacional que integra la comprension narrativa y las experiencias fenomenologicas como por ejemplo la transportacion y la identificacion. Tres tipos de irrelismo son discutidos: ficcion, realismo externo (correspondencia con la realidad externa), y realismo narrativo (coherencia dentro de una historia). Juntamos evidencia que la ficcionalidad no afecta el procesamiento narrativo. Por otro lado, las violaciones al realismo externo y narrativo son concebidas como inconsistencias entre las estructuras mentales de la audiencia dado que ellos construyen modelos mentales de significacion para representar y comprender la narrativa. Estas inconsistencias pueden resultar en evaluaciones online negativas de una narrativa de realismo, pueden trastornar el compromiso, e influir negativamente sobre los juicios de realismo despues de la exposicion (reflectiva) asi como tambien disminuir el poder persuasivo de la narrativa.

ZhaiYao



Yo yak

Fictionality and Perceived Realism in Experiencing Stories: A Model of Narrative Comprehension and Engagement

How Do We Read What Isn’t There to Be Read? Shadow Stories and Permanent Gaps

The rhetoric of narrative The rhetoric of narrative is its power. It has to do with all those elements of the text that produce the many strong or subtle combinations of feeling and thought we experience as we read. These include those elements that inflect how we interpret the narrative: that is, how we find meanings in it. Arguably, everything in the text contributes to its impact and our interpretation of it, and so everything has some rhetorical function. Change one thing, and the effect of the whole changes, if only subtly. As Barthes says, “everything in [the text] signifies…. Even were a detail to appear irretrievably insignificant, resistant to all functionality, it would nonetheless end up with precisely the meaning of absurdity or uselessness” (“Structural Analysis,” 261). Who is exercising this power? Note that when Barthes says that everything has a meaning he is not saying that the author of the text is necessarily in control of, or even aware of, the meaning of everything in the text. This is not to denigrate authors or to demean their often extraordinary gifts, but to acknowledge that interpreting texts is a complex transaction that invariably has to do with more than what the author consciously intended. The issue of meaning and its relation to the author is as important as it is vexed. I will return to this issue in Chapters Seven and Eight.

The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative: The rhetoric of narrative

Beckett at the Bowling Alley@@@Beckett Writing Beckett: The Author in the Autograph@@@The World of Samuel Beckett, 1906-1946@@@Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett

The universality of narrative When we think of narrative, we usually think of it as art, however modest. We think of it as novels or sagas or folk tales or, at the least, as anecdotes. We speak of a gift for telling stories. But as true as it is that narrative can be an art and that art thrives on narrative, narrative is also something we all engage in, artists and non-artists alike. We make narratives many times a day, every day of our lives. And we start doing so almost from the moment we begin putting words together. As soon as we follow a subject with a verb, there is a good chance we are engaged in narrative discourse. “I fell down,” the child cries, and in the process tells her mother a little narrative, just as I have told in this still unfinished sentence a different, somewhat longer narrative that includes the action of the child's telling (“‘I fell down,’ the child cries”). Given the presence of narrative in almost all human discourse, there is little wonder that there are theorists who place it next to language itself as the distinctive human trait. Fredric Jameson, for example, writes about the “all-informing process of narrative ,” which he describes as “the central function or instance of the human mind.” Jean-Francois Lyotard calls narration “the quintessential form of customary knowledge.”

H. Porter Abbott

Papers

How Do We Read What Isn’t There to Be Read? Shadow Stories and Permanent Gaps

The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative: The rhetoric of narrative

Beckett at the Bowling Alley@@@Beckett Writing Beckett: The Author in the Autograph@@@The World of Samuel Beckett, 1906-1946@@@Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett

Narrative and life

The Art of Making It New, Revisited: Beckett and Cliché