ESSAY CEMETERY

Booth, Wayne C. "Chapter III: All Authors Should be Objective."  The Rhetoric of Fiction . Chicago: University of Chicago, 1961. Print. In the 20 th century, the consensus has been for authors to be objective. Objectivity is characterized by neutrality, impartiality, and impassibilité. Neutrality and the Author’s Second Self Neutrality in an author means adopting the same attitude towards all values, good and evil. It is however impossible for an author to remain entirely neutral in his writing. Instead, the author should remain neutral toward a set of values, depending on the sort of work he is writing and his aim for the text. Some works are improved by subjectivity and some are harmed by it. The fewer biases the author utilizes, the more his readers are likely to find his work agreeable. However, when reading a work, the reader always gets a sense of the implied author (or “official scribe”), and he is always distinguishable from other authors. He is ne

Ricoeur, Paul. "Narrative Time."   Narrative Dynamics: Essays on Time, Plot, Closure, and Frames . Ed. Brian Richardson. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2002. 35-45. Print. 1. Presuppositions Narrativity and temporality are closely related. Language refers constantly to temporality, and temporality is necessary for narrative. Time is not, in regards to narrative, simply a linear succession of moments. On a superficial level, time is that "within" which events take place. On a deeper level, time is historicality- emphasis placed on the weight of the past. Plot is the "intelligible whole that governs a succession of events in any story". As such the plot is characterized by temporal complexity. 2. What occurs happens "in" time We will present an analysis of time and an analysis of narrativity, and relate them. Time must be considered by what happens "in" it. Time is subjective, according to the importance we attribute to the e

White, Hayden. "The Historical Text as Literary Artifact."  Narrative Dynamics: Essays on Time, Plot, Closure, and Frames. Ed. Brian Richardson. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2002. 191-210. Print. White explores the inherent problem of objectivity in historical accounts. Fiction and history have been treated as distinct genres; White argues that historical accounts are narratives and ought to be analyzed as one does fiction rather than science. The writing down of historical events is not regulated by a universally agreed upon set of criteria like science and thus must be subject to interpretation. Historical accounts are essentially stories pieced together from facts and chronologies, and some are highlighted as more important than others. Furthermore, they are emotionally colored by the preferences and culture of the historian. For example, a historical situation is not inherently tragic or comic. Its painting as such may even be necessary for a culture, especially if des

Pavel, Thomas G. "Salient Worlds."  Fictional Worlds . Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. 43-72. Print. The chapter “Salient Worlds” is an attempt by Pavel to describe an internal approach to the analysis of fictional worlds. He proposes a distinction between fiction and the unrealized possibility that draws upon reality. Pavel proposes a system where K is the set of all possible worlds, within which G is the real world. Only if a fictional world contains all the same characters it is an alternate world. R is the relationship between G and the other worlds in K. By Leibniz’s logic, if a condition applies to all the worlds it is a necessary truth. If a condition applies in at least one world it is a possible truth.  We may define a property by which only some worlds are accessible from G. Characters: A fictional world may contain either characters that did exist or characters that conceivably could have existed in our world. Realism dictates that “the criterion of t

Jackson, Rosemary. "Chapter 2: The Fantastic as a Mode."  Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion . London: Methuen, 1986. 13-60. Print. Fantasy is a genre which is hard to classify. Critics use the term to signify any literature which is not realistic, or possible in our world, including but not restricted to allegory, horror stories and myths. As a genre, fantasy breaks a lot of conventions of realistic literature. Space, time, philosophies, ideologies are all different. Language and syntax are also changed. Fantasy deals with existential issues through this breaking of conventions. Fantasy spans all themes, including erotic, criminal, psychological and macabre. Fantasy also breaks conventions of character, and many times characters within fantasy have multiple identities. According to Sartre the function of fantasy changed with the shift of society from religion to secularity. In the religious tradition fantasy was a form of escapism, but in secular society fan