2007 Handbooks

This unit explores narrative technique in the novel and ways of interpreting these texts, using selected examples from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. We will study recent theories of how narratives work and apply these ideas to the interpretation of novels with apparently different aims and strategies, including realism, experimentation with form, and the use of the genre as a vehicle for social commentary or humour.

Particular attention will be paid to reconceptualisations of the genre, and the various Structuralist and Post-structuralist theories accounting for the construction of meaning in narrative. In this unit, students will learn advanced textual analysis and critical practice, including how to interpret and describe the way time and pace are managed; the representation of character and agency; the presentation of consciousness and memory; subjectivity; metafiction; and style and rhetoric in prose fiction.