Showing papers on "Fable published in 1990"
TL;DR: Foucault as discussed by the authors proposes an alternative narrative account of his own, instead proposing an inquiry into the reasons why we should ever have believed the popular story at all, which can be seen as a partially formalized account of individual sexuality versus a more properly historical account of sexuality in general.
Abstract: In the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud criticizes the popular conception of sexual development, which "is beautifully reflected in the poetic fable which tells how the original human beings were cut up into two halves-man and woman-and how they are always striving to unite again in love" (1962 [1942]: 45-46). Freud offers in contrast his own narrative account, which radically revises the conception of infantile sexuality and can better explain the existence of sexual "aberration," but which in doing so raises the question of how any one story can be "better" than another. In The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault recounts another popular conception of sexuality, in which, "the story goes," the frankness of the seventeenth century is replaced by the repression of the Victorian age, which continues to dominate today (1987: 3-6). These two popular stories can be contrasted as a partially formalized account of individual sexuality versus a more properly historical account of sexuality in general, but the most striking point is that, unlike Freud, Foucault does not offer an alternative narrative account of his own, instead proposing an inquiry into the reasons why we should ever have believed the popular story at all. Foucault's apparent rejection of narrative is very significant; of all the human sciences, history is the one that most obviously employs narrative techniques, and historiographers have given a great deal of thought to the role of narrative in history writing. As Peter Gay comments, "Historical narration without analysis is trivial, historical analysis without narration is incomplete" (1975: 189). Poetics Today 11:2 (Summer 1990). Copyright ? 1990 by The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. ccc 0333-5372/90/$2.50.
5 citations
TL;DR: The historical novel is not a false genre, but a species of false genre which includes all compositions that try to mix history and invention, whatever their form as discussed by the authors, and it is only the most refined and ingenious effort yet to meet the challenge, as if the challenge could ever be met.
Abstract: T HE TITLE of Alessandro Manzoni's Del romanzo storico e, in genere, de' componimenti misti di storia e d'invenzione (1850; On the Historical Novel and, in General, on the Mixture of History and Invention) indicates that the author of Ipromessi sposi (1840; The Betrothed) conceived of the genre of the historical novel as a combination of history and fable, of the real and the imagined. This recalls Aristotle's distinction between history and poetry in the Poetics. But, unlike Aristotle, Manzoni showed a marked preference for history; moreover, he viewed the historical novel as an aberration: "The historical novel is not a false genre, but a species of false genre which includes all compositions that try to mix history and invention, whatever their form. Being the most modern such species, the historical novel is only the most refined and ingenious effort yet to meet the challenge, as if the challenge could ever be met" (906; 81).1 For Manzoni, the historical novel fits into a general history of literature as the logical outgrowth of epic and tragedy, in which history also plays
3 citations