Showing papers in "Style in 2020"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors distinguish between two types of narrative nonlinearity: nonlinear storytelling (a nonchronological presentation of events in the narration) and nonlinear storyworlds (nonlinearity as a feature of the narrated world, for instance by way of time-travel or temporal loops) with most scholarly attention focusing on the former, while the question of what allows audiences to make sense of strange and impossible storyworld temporalities has remained somewhat overlooked.
Abstract: a B s t r a c t: What allows an audience to make sense of stories with complex nonlinear time structures that are radically different from everyday experience? To address this question, we distinguish between two types of narrative nonlinearity: nonlinear storytelling (a non-chronological presentation of events in the narration) and nonlinear storyworlds (nonlinearity as a feature of the narrated world, for instance by way of time-travel or temporal loops) With most scholarly attention focusing on the former, here we focus on the latter, as the question of what allows audiences to make sense of strange and impossible storyworld temporalities has remained somewhat overlooked Drawing on the available research on text comprehension, we first discuss how both strategies of nonlinearity affect narrative comprehension differently We then ask what cognitive abilities allow spectators to engage with nonlinear storyworlds Drawing on insights from conceptual metaphor theory and mental timeline theory, we propose that the comprehension of nonlinear storyworlds is facilitated by the cognitive ability to mentally represent time in terms of space By metaphorically blending spatial and embodied concepts into narrative timelines, strategies of spatial mental representation allow spectators to conceive and comprehend various forms of phenomenologically non-experienceable time structures—a hypothesis we seek to demonstrate through several cases of nonlinear storyworlds from contemporary complex cinema k e y W o r D s: Narrative complexity, nonlinearity, puzzle films, conceptual metaphors, mental timeline
6 citations
TL;DR: Literary studies could get the reset that many realize the field needs by a refreshed attention to language through Daniel Dor's bold, compelling, and generous new theory of language as "the instruction of imagination".
Abstract: abstract:Literary studies could get the reset that many realize the field needs by a refreshed attention to language—language understood not through the lenses of philology, Saussure, structuralism, poststructuralism, speech act theory, or Chomsky, but through Daniel Dor's bold, compelling, and generous new theory of language as \"the instruction of imagination.\" Literary studies have missed much through not having a sufficiently searching and comprehensive theory of language to work with, one that pays due attention to the phenomenology of experience, the centrality of imagination, and the frailty, the fallibility, and the ongoing social negotiations of language. The contrasting examples are familiar—the openings of Bleak House, Pride and Prejudice, and Shakespeare's Sonnet 1—both to compensate for the novelty of the linguistic theory and to suggest how Dor's account of language can open up new perspectives on and new implications of what we already know well.
5 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that narrative can also foreground nonhuman assemblages (animals, plants, material objects, etc.) and can employ this focus to question anthropocentric assumptions, and they discuss two examples: Tinkers (2009), by Paul Harding, in which a more-than-human we emerges and brings together the human protagonists and cosmic realities; and The Overstory (2018), by Richard Powers, whose plot organization builds on an analogy between a group of environmental activists and a symbiotic collective of plants and fungi.
Abstract: Narrative theory is devoting increasing attention to we-narrative and, more generally, stories that center on groups. However, the we in question tends to be a human one. In this article, I argue that narrative can also foreground nonhuman assemblages (animals, plants, material objects, etc.) and can employ this focus to question anthropocentric assumptions. I discuss two examples: Tinkers (2009), by Paul Harding, in which a more-than-human we emerges and brings together the human protagonists and cosmic realities; and The Overstory (2018), by Richard Powers, whose plot organization builds on an analogy between a group of environmental activists and a symbiotic collective of plants and fungi. Through we-narrative (Harding) and formal engagement with collectivity (Powers), these contemporary works demonstrate how narrative (and narrative theory) can speak to current debates on the ecological crisis: imagining more-than-human assemblages through narrative form calls for a profound rethinking of collective behavior on a planetary scale.
4 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, a complete reading of William Wordsworth's "It Is a Beauteous Evening" is described. But this reading is restricted to the first half of the poem.
Abstract: abstract:Poetry is formal. Rhythm and form are closely related. Rhythm is componential. Form is paradigmatic. The qualities of the rhythmic components are the source of formal paradigms. Poetic paradigms are quadratic, organizing linguistic, rhetorical, and symbolic forms into four temporalities (cyclical time, centroidal time, linear time, and relative time) following the four components of rhythm (meter, grouping, prolongation, and theme). Each poem is a complex mixture of these four temporalities. It is this complex mixture of temporalities that gives a poem its unique \"inner\" form, its distinct sensibility/subjectivity/psychology. Cyclical time is physical/perceptual/ecstatic. Centroidal time is emotional. Linear time is actional/volitional. Relative time is memorial/imaginative. I call this approach to poetry \"temporal poetics.\" Using this \"temporal poetics\" this essay provides a complete reading of William Wordsworth's \"It Is a Beauteous Evening.\
1 citations