Narrative poetics

Author: Zuo Guo Song
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-11-01
Features: This book is a monograph on narratology. Academics know that narratology initially emerged as a branch of structuralism and later developed into an independent discipline. It focuses on the internal structure of texts, emphasizes scientific rigor and systematicity, and primarily explores the structural patterns within narrative works and the relationships among various elements. It falls under the category of research. Generally speaking, traditional narratological theories focus their attention solely on the internal aspects of texts—considering narrative as a specific field of discourse and primarily determining meaning based on variations in narrative discourse. The author of this book, however, adopts a broader perspective. He attempts to center his analysis on the novel text, seeking meaning through the process of interpretation, and examines the narrative aspects exhibited by the text, genre, story, narration, discourse, archetypes, and context, providing a relatively objective elaboration and argumentation. To a certain extent, this approach overcomes the limitation of traditional narratological theories, which confine research focus solely to the internal aspects of works, demonstrating the author's effort to construct a more broadly meaningful framework for narratological theory. The book also dedicates a separate chapter to discussing the composition, characteristics, and functions of genre form and context in creating meaning. The author provides multifaceted, and many of his insights are the result of his reflections and summaries after extensive reading practice.