Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This comprehensive, accessible guidebook traces the ways in which human beings have used narrative to make sense of time, space and identity over the centuries. Particular attention is given to:
* early narrative, from Hellenic and Hebraic
* the rise of the novel
* realist representation
* imperialism and narrative
* modernism and cinema
* postmodern narrative
* narrative and new technologies.
With a strong emphasis on clarity and a range of examples from oral cultures to cyberspace, this is the ideal guide to an essential critical topic.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Series Editor's Preface (p. IX)
• Acknowledgements (p. X)
• 1 In the beginning: the end (p. 1)
• Story, plot and narrative (p. 4)
• Sequence (p. 7)
• Space (p. 12)
• Time (p. 16)
• Phylogeny and ontogeny (p. 21)
• 2 Early narrative (p. 29)
• Narrative and history (p. 30)
• Orality, literacy and narrative (p. 32)
• Universality and narrative (p. 33)
• Narrative and identity (p. 37)
• Hellenic and Hebraic foundations (p. 41)
• Hybridity and the Western tradition (p. 51)
• A voyage to the self (p. 53)
• 3 The rise and rise of the novel (p. 56)
• Mimesis (p. 57)
• Aristotelian mimesis (p. 61)
• Imitation, quotation and identity (p. 63)
• Epic, identity and the mixed mode (p. 67)
• Questioning the voice in the Middle Ages (p. 70)
• The low form of the romance and the rise of the novel (p. 74)
• The triple rise thesis and beyond (p. 77)
• Instruction, telling and narrative mode (p. 81)
• 4 Realist representation (p. 88)
• Secretaries to the nineteenth century (p. 89)
• Battles over realism (p. 91)
• Middlemarch and 'classic realism' (p. 94)
• Omniscient narration (p. 100)
• Realism and the voices of narrative (p. 104)
• Narrative with dirt under its fingernails (p. 107)
• 5 Beyond realism (p. 117)
• Identity and the analysis of Heart of Darkness (p. 119)
• Imperialism and repression (p. 123)
• Imperialism and sexuality (p. 127)
• Narrative, imperialism and the conflict of Western identity (p. 132)
• The reader and the narrative (p. 134)
• Narrative levels (p. 138)
• 6 Modernism and the cinema (p. 146)
• Writing in light (p. 153)
• The cinema and modernism (p. 163)
• Just another 'realism'? (p. 167)
• 7 Postmodernism (p. 171)
• 'Meta' levels (p. 174)
• History (p. 179)
• The decline of the 'grand narrative' (p. 183)
• New technologies (p. 189)
• 8 In the end: the beginning (p. 201)
• Narrative in cyberspace (p. 202)
• Reading narrative (p. 205)
• Diversity and genres (p. 209)
• Closure, verisimilitude and the narrative sign (p. 215)
• The future of the narrative sign (p. 223)
• Glossary (p. 229)
• Bibliography (p. 246)
• Index (p. 261)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Dealing with the concept of narrative is complicated, especially since current cultural practice seems to include as narrative everything that can be perceived to have a beginning, middle, and end. This subject, then, is especially appropriate for this new release in the "New Critical Idiom" series, which seeks to provide clear, well-illustrated introductions to literary issues. In the first part, Cobley (communication, London Guildhall Univ.) approaches his subject more or less chronologically, looking at basic terminology and early narratives--oral narratives, Hellenic and Hebraic traditions, mimesis, the epic, the rise of the novel. Discussions then get more elaborate, dealing with issues like modernism and its complications, the cinema, postmodernist meta-narratives, and (this reviewer's favorite) narrative in cyberspace. Most of the book is not so much a history as a series of explanations of terms and concepts, investigations of influences (especially of sister disciplines), and clarifying digressions. There are many illustrations using both well-known works like Conrad's Heart of Darkness and lesser-known stories, films, and radio and television shows. Some of these will not be familiar to the American reader, but probably should be. Generous references to narrative critics and theorists, sound glossary, and excellent bibliography. Highly recommended for undergraduate libraries. T. Loe SUNY College at Oswego