Article contents
Narratology in the Twenty-First Century: The Cognitive Approach to Narrative
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2020
Extract
Literary theory in the twentieth century was heavily influenced by linguistics. The structuralist model that set the waves of literary theories in motion originated in Saussurean linguistics and its Jakobsonian elaborations. One could argue that until the 1980s all literary theory, and all linguistics for that matter, was based on an analysis of langue, or the system of language or literature or text, to the detriment of parole, the practices, contexts, and negotiations of speakers, writers, and readers. The structuralist model, with its theoretical expansion of close-reading practices, already entrenched in the wake of the New Criticism, generalized the frame of mind that was soon to become the bogeyman of poststructuralist and cultural studies attacks. The formula could be summarized as No history, no ethics, no themes, no aesthetics, and no context—period.
- Type
- Thinking the Future
- Information
- PMLA , Volume 125 , Issue 4: Special Topic Literary Criticism for the Twenty-First Century , October 2010 , pp. 924 - 930
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2010
References
Works Cited
- 13
- Cited by