Pre-Postmodernist Manifestations of the Unnatural: Instances of Expanded Consciousness in ‘Omniscient’ Narration and Reflector-Mode Narratives
Abstract
This article discusses the ‘omniscient’ narration in many realist novels and the reflector-mode narratives of literary modernism as instances of expanded consciousness that involve blends between human and superhuman features. In both cases, human consciousness gets widened to such a degree that the third-person narrator literally knows the thoughts and feelings of other characters (through techniques such as psychonarration, free indirect discourse, or direct thought), and this correct knowledge of what goes on in ‘other’ minds is impossible in the real world, where we have access to the minds of our fellow human beings but typically have to rely on hypotheses or speculations. The article thus takes issue with the recent claims by Alan Palmer and David Herman who argue that there is no fundamental difference between the reading of minds in the actual world and instances of mind reading in fiction.
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Editorial
- Grand Tourists or Travellers? Dorothy Wordsworth’s and Mary Shelley’s Travel Journals
- (In)significant Details: Vision and Perception in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “My Sister’s Sleep” and “The Blessed Damozel”
- Pre-Postmodernist Manifestations of the Unnatural: Instances of Expanded Consciousness in ‘Omniscient’ Narration and Reflector-Mode Narratives
- A New Hermione: Re-Creations of the Female Harry Potter Protagonist in Fan Fiction
- ‘Be quiet!’ Terrorism and Trauma in Paul Greengrass’ Bloody Sunday and United 93
- Buchbesprechungen
- Bucheingänge
- Die Autoren dieses Heftes
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Editorial
- Grand Tourists or Travellers? Dorothy Wordsworth’s and Mary Shelley’s Travel Journals
- (In)significant Details: Vision and Perception in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “My Sister’s Sleep” and “The Blessed Damozel”
- Pre-Postmodernist Manifestations of the Unnatural: Instances of Expanded Consciousness in ‘Omniscient’ Narration and Reflector-Mode Narratives
- A New Hermione: Re-Creations of the Female Harry Potter Protagonist in Fan Fiction
- ‘Be quiet!’ Terrorism and Trauma in Paul Greengrass’ Bloody Sunday and United 93
- Buchbesprechungen
- Bucheingänge
- Die Autoren dieses Heftes
