The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative

ISBN-13: 9780521771764 / Angielski / Twarda / 2000 / 308 str.

N. J. Lowe

Opis

This is the story of how Western literature first developed its distinctive taste for the kind of tight, economical plotting still employed in modern fiction and cinema. The book shows how this taste was formed in Greco-Roman antiquity out of a series of revolutions in storytelling, centered on Homer, early tragedy, Hellenistic comedy, and the Greek love-novels of the early centuries AD. Along the way, it draws on cognitive science and current literary theory to offer a resilient yet accessible new theory of what "plot" is and how it works.

Recenzje

'This brilliant book … is immensely rewarding … it is stimulating stuff and certain to cause major reconsiderations in the way we think about plots ancient and modern.' Literary Review

Spis treści

Part I. The Classical Plot: 1. Approaches; 2. A cognitive model; 3. The narrative universe; 4. The classical plot; 5. Unclassical plots; Part II. The Classical Plots: 6. Epic myth I: Iliad; 7. Epic myth II: Odyssey; 8. Dramatic myth: tragedy and satyr-play; 9. Dramatic fiction: New Comedy; 10. Epic fiction: the Greek novel; Conclusion; Glossary.