The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative

Wolfgang Iser

Gary Morson, Caryl Emerson

Lisa Zunshine

Why We Read Fiction offers a lucid overview of the most exciting area of research in contemporary cognitive psychology known as "Theory of Mind" and discusses its implications for literary studies. It covers a broad range of fictional narratives, from Richardson’s Clarissa, Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment, and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Nabokov’s Lolita, and Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. Zunshine’s surprising new interpretations of well-known literary texts and popular cultural representations constantly prod her readers to rethink their own interest in fictional narrative. Written for a general audience, this study provides a jargon-free introduction to the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field known as cognitive approaches to literature and culture.

David Herman

The Cambridge Companion to Narrative provides a unique and valuable overview of current approaches to narrative study. An international team of experts explores ideas of storytelling and methods of narrative analysis as they have emerged across diverse trditions of inquiry and in connection with a variety of media, from film and television, to storytelling in the 'real-life' contexts of face-to-face interaction, to literary fiction. Each chapter presents a survey of scholarly approaches to topics such as haracter, dialogue, genre or language, shows how those approaches can be brought to bear on a relatively well-known illustrative example, and indicates directions for further research. Featuring a chapter reviewing definitions of narrative, a glossary of ey terms and a comprehensive index, this is an essential resource for both students and scholars in many fields, including language and literature, composition and rhetoric, creative writing, jurisprudence, communication and media...

Mark Currie

"A highly intelligent study, covering all the relevant theoretical issues skillfully and clearly." --Professor Frank Kermode, Cambridge University