Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture & Society) - Hardcover

Dolezel, Lubomir

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080185749X ISBN 13: 9780801857492

Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998

Inhaltsangabe

Acknowledging that fiction usually bears some kind of relation to reality - for example, the London of Dickens, this text offers a theory of literary fiction based on the idea of possible worlds. Beginning with a discussion of the extant semantics and pragmatics of fictionality - by Leibniz, Russell, Frege, Searle, Auerbach and others - it relates them to literature, literary theory and narratology. The text also investigates theories of action, intention and literary communication to develop a system of concepts that allows an reinterpretation of a host of classical, modern and postmodern fictional narratives - from Defoe through Dickens, Dostoevsky, Huysmans, Bely and Kafka to Hemingway, Kundera, Rhys, Plenzdorf and Coetzee.

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Reseña del editor

"The universe of possible worlds is constantly expanding and diversifying thanks to the incessant world-constructing activity of human minds and hands. Literary fiction is probably the most active experimental laboratory of the world-constructing enterprise." -- from the author's Preface

The standard contrast between fiction and reality, notes Lubomír Dolezel, obscures an array of problems that have beset philosophers and literary critics for centuries. Commentators usually admit that fiction conveys some kind of truth -- the truth of the story of Faust, for instance. They acknowledge that fiction usually bears some kind of relation to reality -- for example, the London of Dickens. But both the status of the truth and the nature of the relationship have baffled, frustrated, or repelled a long line of thinkers.

In Heterocosmica, Lubomír Dolezel offers nothing less than a complete theory of literary fiction based on the idea of possible worlds. Beginning with a discussion of the extant semantics and pragmatics of fictionality -- by Leibniz, Russell, Frege, Searle, Auerbach, and others -- he relates them to literature, literary theory, and narratology. He also investigates theories of action, intention, and literary communication to develop a system of concepts that allows him to offer perceptive reinterpretations of a host of classical, modern, and postmodern fictional narratives--from Defoe through Dickens, Dostoevsky, Huysmans, Bely, and Kafka to Hemingway, Kundera, Rhys, Plenzdorf, and Coetzee. By careful attention to philosophical inquiry into possible worlds, especially Saul Kripke's and Jaakko Hintikka's, and through long familiarity with literary theory, Dolezel brings us an unprecedented examination of the notion of fictional worlds.

"This remarkable book sums up the life's work of one of the most serious, original, and balanced literary thinkers in North America. Focusing on the fictional universes projected by literary texts and the discursive means of achieving fictional effects, Lubomír Dolezel's Heterocosmica provides a general theory of literary meaning. The result is a highly distinguished contribution to the field of literary theory." -- Thomas Pavel, Princeton University

Biografía del autor

Lubomír Dolezel is a professor emeritus and senior research fellow at the University of Toronto's Centre for Comparative Literature. He is the co-editor of Statistics and Style and author of Narrative Modes in Czech Literature. His Occidental Poetics has been translated into six European languages.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1998
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 080185749X
• ISBN 13: 9780801857492
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 260
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar