Details

Subject(s)

• Postmodernism (Literature) [Browse]
• Narration (Rhetoric)—History—20th century [Browse]
• Storytelling [Browse]

Summary note

"Michael Roemer's groundbreaking work argues that every story, be it ancient myth or documentary film, is completed before we read or watch it. He explores why a society like ours - predicated on free will - is addicted to tales that neither we, nor the heroes, can control." "Roemer argues that, contrary to both formalist and postmodern aesthetic theories, traditional stories do not create order out of chaos but challenge our order with chaos, undermining the structures we have built to protect ourselves. He finds that stories are both radical and conservative, invalidating our freedom while centering on heroes or heroines who are obliged to act alone; their adventures remove them from the sheltering community. Moreover, their attempt to escape the plot is mandated by the plot itself. Predicated on contradiction, ambiguity, and uncertainty, stories affirm what they deny - just as society both affirms and denies our existence as individuals."--Jacket.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (p. 387-487) and index.

Contents

• Part one : Traditional story. The preclusive form of narrative
• Stories connect us
• Fictive figures must think they are free
• Plot
• Plot and necessity
• Plot and the sacred
• The desacralization of story
• Story and consciousness
• Story as paradox
• Story affirms what it denies
• Part two : Postmodernism and traditional narrative. We have always been positivists
• We don't and do believe in stories
• Postmodern theory and traditional art
• Deconstruction liberates and enables
• Invalidating traditional aesthetics
• Traditional story is on the right
• Invalidating the privileged realm
• The rejection of empathy
• The invalidation of experience
• Part three : Storytellers new and old. Popular stories
• Four storytellers and the enlightened tradition
• Henry James, postmodernist
• Part four : And now? The death of God
• Postmodernism and the death of man
• Envoy.

Show 22 more Contents items

ISBN

• 084768041X ((alk. paper))
• 9780847680412 ((alk. paper))
• 0847680428 ((pbk. ; : alk. paper))
• 9780847680429 ((pbk. ; : alk. paper))

LCCN

95001677

OCLC

31969181

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