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

Preface Introduction: The Role of the Reader I. Open 1. The Poetics of the Open Work 2. The Semantics of Metaphor 3. On the Possibility of Generating Aesthetic Messages in an Edenic Language II. Closed 4. The Myth of Superman 5. Rhetoric and Ideology in Sue's Les Mysteres de Paris 6. Narrative Structures in Fleming III. Open/Closed 7. Peirce and the Semiotic Foundations of Openness: Signs as Texts and Texts as Signs 8. Lector in Fabula: Pragmatic Strategy in a Metanarrative Text Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Bibliography

The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts

Style in Language

In \"The Company We Keep\", Wayne C. Booth argues for the relocation of ethics to the center of our engagement with literature. But the questions he asks are not confined to morality. Returning ethics to its root sense, Booth proposes that the ethical critic will be interested in any effect on the ethos, the total character or quality of tellers and listeners. Ethical criticism will risk talking about the quality of this particular encounter with this particular work. Yet it will give up the old hope for definitive judgments of 'good' work and 'bad'. Rather it will be a conversation about many kinds of personal and social goods that fictions can serve or destroy. While not ignoring the consequences for conduct of engaging with powerful stories, it will attend to that more immediate topic, What happens to us as we read? Who am I, during the hours of reading or listening? What is the quality of the life I lead in the company of these would-be friends? Through a wide variety of periods and genres and scores of particular works, Booth pursues various metaphors for such engagements: 'friendship with books', 'the exchange of gifts', 'the colonizing of worlds', 'the constitution of commonwealths'. He concludes with extended explorations of the ethical powers and potential dangers of works by Rabelais, D. H. Lawrence, Jane Austen, and Mark Twain.

The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction

https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/james_joyce_quarterly/v047/47.3.brockman.pdf

Current JJ Checklist (110)

Paul Ricoeur denies symbolic effect to expressions where the original sense of an expression is destroyed in the process of interpretation, calling such discourse “allegory”, the mere “rhetorical” and “didactic” procedure in which the literal meaning is “eliminated once it has done its job”. Such language is a vehicle, or a ladder: “Having ascended the ladder”, says Ricoeur, “we can then descend it” (Ricoeur 1976: 55).1 Ricoeur thus employs two categories, and if we are to have two categories — one in which the initial sense is destroyed (Ricoeur’s “allegory”), and the other in which the original meaning is retained and added to the second meaning (Ricoeur’s “symbol”) — I believe it is more helpful to subject symbolism to Roman Jakobson’s paradigm, establishing two forms of symbolism, each signaled by contextual cues: the metaphoric symbol, in which the literal expression is discarded, and the metonymic symbol in which no such discarding occurs.2

Ricoeur’s “Allegory” and Jakobson’s Metaphoric/Metonymic Principles

The phenomenology of ethical criticism : How literature affects ethical development

Elsewhere, I have pointed out that Paul Ricoeur denies symbolic effect to language situations where the original sense of an expression is destroyed in the process of interpretation, calling such discourse “allegory”, the mere “rhetorical” and “didactic” procedure in which the literal meaning is “eliminated once it has done its job” The point emerged that Ricoeur needs two categories — one in which the initial sense is destroyed (Ricoeur’s “allegory”), and the other in which the original meaning is retained and added to the second meaning (Ricoeur’s “symbol”) If we are to have a dual paradigm, I argued that it is more helpful to subject symbolism to Roman Jakobson’s paradigm, establishing two forms of symbolism, each signaled by contextual cues: the metaphoric symbol, in which the literal expression is discarded, and the metonymie symbol in which no such discarding occurs (Wilson 151) I concluded that under Jakobson’s paradigm, Ricoeur’s “allegory” is metaphorical symbolism and Ricoeur’s “symbolism” is metonymie symbolism

Metaphoric and Metonymic Allegory: Ricoeur, Jakobson, and the Poetry of W. B. Yeats

The Postmodern Novel: The Example of John Irving's The World According to Garp

James Joyce’s short story “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” from his book Dubliners has often been criticized for being chaotic or at least random. Traditional methods of analysis, such as plot analysis, do not yield an idea of coherent structure. They thus appear to support the criticisms. However, when the story is subjected to an analysis based on Roland Barthes’ five codes from his book S/Z, the story is revealed to have both an overall structure and an intricate, detailed sub-structure of twelve scenes. The overall structure is largely provided by the operation of what Barthes called the Enigma Code. The detailed structure is provided by what Barthes called the Action Code. Barthes suggests using the Action Code to create a table, and one appears in this article. Barthes says that the elements in the table will “articulate” with each other; and an examination of the table created to Barthes’ specifications shows that the elements do indeed articulate both horizontally and vertically. Thus, an interesting irony arises in that both Joyce’s story and Barthes’ book have been accused of anarchistic construction, yet when Barthes’ system is applied to Joyce’s story the rigorous structure of the story emerges and the orderliness of the five code system is confirmed.

Raymond J. Wilson

Papers

Ricoeur’s “Allegory” and Jakobson’s Metaphoric/Metonymic Principles

The phenomenology of ethical criticism : How literature affects ethical development

Metaphoric and Metonymic Allegory: Ricoeur, Jakobson, and the Poetry of W. B. Yeats

The Postmodern Novel: The Example of John Irving's The World According to Garp

James Joyce’s “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” and The Five Codes of Fiction