Telling Stories: A Theoretical Analysis of Narrative Fiction / Edition 1

by Steven Cohan, Linda M. Shires

Overview

Telling Stories overturns traditional definitions of narrative by arguing that any story, whether a Bette Davis film, a jeans ad, a Jane Austen novel of a 'Cathy' comic, must be related to larger cultural networks. The authors show how meanings and subjectivity do not exist in isolation, but are manufactured by the narratives our culture reads and watches every day. They call for a critical practice that, through the fracturing of texts, can alter the grounds of knowledge and interpretation. This timely study will interest critics of narrative and culture, as well as students wanting to extend post-Saussurean theories to popular and canonical cultures, and to the dynamics of story-telling itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415013871
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/20/1988
Series:	New Accents
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x (d)

About the Author

Steven Cohan and Linda M. Shires are both Associate Professors of English at Syracuse University.

Table of Contents

General editor’s preface 1 Theorizing language 2 Analyzing textuality 3 The structures of narrative: story 4 The structures of narrative: narration 5 Decoding texts: ideology, subjectivity, discourse 6 The subject of narrative