Episode structures in literary narratives
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David S. Miall
Abstract
This article is concerned with the moment-by-moment unfolding of the text as we might suppose the reader to experience it; in addressing one aspect of this reading experience, I propose a definition of the episode, and of episode structure, in literary narratives. To do so, I draw on insights from Ingarden, Iser, Barthes, Eco, Jim Rosenberg, and Ed Tan, but have found most useful the discussion of narrative structure in a 1922 essay by the Russian Formalist A. A. Reformatsky, which includes an analysis of Maupassant's story “Un Coq Chanta”. Reformatsky's essay is analyzed in detail. In a final section, I review responses to a short story (Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour”) and consider the evidence for episodes in readers' responses. To the number of convergent criteria used for characterizing episodes I add the role of the narrative twist occurring at or near the end of an episode, serving to intensify or redirect the issues raised, and itself characterized by a distinct development in readers' feeling. Episodes provide the phases during which issues of concern to readers are managed and developed, and the analysis of the episodes of a story may thus provide a valuable framework for identifying the key developments in the responses of readers.
© Walter de Gruyter
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Worlds in worlds: Assigning inferences to subdomains
- Episode structures in literary narratives
- James Joyce and narrative territory: The distinct functions of lost time in “An Encounter” and “The Sisters”
- Exploring the common ground: Sensus communis, humor and the interpretation of comic poetry
- Did Lou inspire guilt, as well?
- Marisa Bortolussi and Peter Dixon. Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response
- Mario Saraceni. The Language of Comics
- Graeme Ritchie. The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes
- A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen, Miriam Taverniers, and Louise Ravelli. Grammatical Metaphor: Views from Systemic Functional Linguistics
- Max Louwerse and Willie van Peer. Thematics: Interdisciplinary Studies
- Index of articles in Volume 33 (2004)
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Worlds in worlds: Assigning inferences to subdomains
- Episode structures in literary narratives
- James Joyce and narrative territory: The distinct functions of lost time in “An Encounter” and “The Sisters”
- Exploring the common ground: Sensus communis, humor and the interpretation of comic poetry
- Did Lou inspire guilt, as well?
- Marisa Bortolussi and Peter Dixon. Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response
- Mario Saraceni. The Language of Comics
- Graeme Ritchie. The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes
- A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen, Miriam Taverniers, and Louise Ravelli. Grammatical Metaphor: Views from Systemic Functional Linguistics
- Max Louwerse and Willie van Peer. Thematics: Interdisciplinary Studies
- Index of articles in Volume 33 (2004)
