1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. English Text Construction
  4. Volume 11, Issue 2
  5. Article
Volume 11, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1874-8767
  • E-ISSN: 1874-8775
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

Critics reading narratives as progressions, that’s to say, from beginning to end, prefer to see meaning emerge as a result of the interaction between different elements in the narrative, rather than of the imposition of a priori cultural schemata. This article, however, argues for the possibility of using a priori cultural schemata, as long as these pass through the filters established by theories of narrative progression. To show how this is done, I will interpret Frank Miller’s comic by letting a tool of cultural-semantic analysis interact with narrative tension in the form of suspense, curiosity, and surprise. I argue that the back and forth between narrative tension and the tool accounts not only for the content of the comic but also for its basic narrative rhythm.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/etc.00008.can
2018-10-19
2025-06-23

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/etc.00008.can
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Bal, Mieke
    2009 Narratology: Introduction into the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Baron-Cohen, Simon
    2011 The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty. New York: Basic.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Baroni, Raphaël
    2007 La tension narrative: suspense, curiosité et surprise. Paris: Seuil.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. 2011 Tensions et résolutions: musicalité de l’intrigue ou intrigue musicale?Cahiers de Narratologie21: 1–13.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Brooks, Peter
    1984 Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative. New York: Knopf.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Candel, Daniel
    2013a Advanced literacy and the place of literary semantics in secondary education: A tool of fictional analysis. Semiotica195 (June): 305–330.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. 2013b Moving possible world theory from logic to value. Poetics Today34 (1–2): 177–231.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. 2013c Literatur interpetieren – ein Analysetool. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. 2016 Possible worlds in the history of the novel. Poetics Today37 (1): 107–136. 10.1215/03335372‑3452631
     https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-3452631 [Google Scholar]
  10. Candel, Daniel et al.
    2017 Analyzing the fictional worlds of Pixar with an eye on digital humanities. Semiotica218 (September): 91–118.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Candel, Daniel
    2018 A report on the reports of the Stanford Literary Lab: A reason why the digital humanities may find it difficult to change literary history. Semiotica, 224 (September): 1–24.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Dannenberg, Hilary
    2008 Coincidence and Counterfactuality: Plotting Time and Space in Narrative Fiction. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 10.2307/j.ctt1dgn486
     https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1dgn486 [Google Scholar]
  13. Doležel, Lubomír
    1998 Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Fischer, Andreas
    2004 The notional structure of thesauruses. InCategorization in the History of English, Christian J. Kay and Jeremy J. Smith (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 41–58. 10.1075/cilt.261.04fis
     https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.261.04fis [Google Scholar]
  15. Herman, David
    2012 Story-Telling and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge: MIT.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Herodotus
    Herodotus 1998 Histories. New York: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Hühn, Peter
    2016 The eventfulness of non-events. InNarrative Sequence in Contemporary Narratology, Raphaël Baroni & Françoise Revaz (eds). Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 37–47.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Kay, Christian
    2009 Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary: with Additional Material from “A Thesaurus of Old English”. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Konyndyk, Kenneth
    1986 Introductory Modal Logic. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Labov, William
    1972 Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. MacIntyre, Alasdair
    2007 After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. 2016 Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781316816967
     https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316816967 [Google Scholar]
  23. McCloud, Scott
    1994 Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Collins.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. McKeon, Michael
    2002 The Origins of the English Novel: 1600–1740. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. 2005 The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Midgley, Mary
    1994 The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom and Morality. London: Routledge. 10.4324/9780203287507
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203287507 [Google Scholar]
  27. Miller, Frank
    1999 300. Milwaukee: Dark Horse.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Moretti, Franco
    2013 Distant Reading. New York: Verso.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Phelan, Jim
    1989 Reading People, Reading Plots: Character, Progression, and the Interpretation of Narrative. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. 2007 Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Pramaggiore, Maria & Tom Wallis
    2011 Film: A Critical Introduction. London: Laurence King.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Reichl, Susanne
    2009 Cognitive Principles, Critical Practice: Reading Literature at University. Vienna: Vienna University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Rescher, Nicholas
    1968 Topics in Philosophical Logic. Dordrecht: Reidel. 10.1007/978‑94‑017‑3546‑9
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3546-9 [Google Scholar]
  34. Roberts, Adam
    1999 Romantic and Victorian Long Poems: A Guide. Aldershot: Ashgate.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Ronen, Ruth
    1994 Possible Worlds in Literary Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511597480
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597480 [Google Scholar]
  36. 2010 Des mondes possibles au-delà du principe de vérité. InLa théorie littéraire des mondes possibles, Françoise Lavocat (ed.). Paris: CNRS Éditions, 189–202.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Ryan, Marie-Laure
    1991 Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. 2001 Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Seaton, Douglas
    2005 Narrative in music: The case of Beethoven’s “Tempest” sonata. InNarratology Beyond Literary Criticism: Mediality, Disciplinarity, Jan Christoph Meister (ed.). Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 65–82. 10.1515/9783110201840.65
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110201840.65 [Google Scholar]
  40. Segal, Eyal
    2016 Ending twice over (or more): Alternate endings in narrative. InNarrative Sequence in Contemporary Narratology, Raphaël Baroni & Françoise Revaz (eds). Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 71–86.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Shen, Dan
    2013 Implied author: Authorial audience and context, form and history in neo-Aristotelian rhetorical theory. Narrative21 (2): 140–158. 10.1353/nar.2013.0006
     https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2013.0006 [Google Scholar]
  42. 2014 Style and Rhetoric of Short Narrative Fiction: Covert Progressions Behind Overt Plots. London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. 2015 Dual textual dynamics and dual readerly dynamics: Double narrative movements in Mansfield’s “Psychology”. Style49 (4): 411–438. 10.5325/style.49.4.0411
     https://doi.org/10.5325/style.49.4.0411 [Google Scholar]
  44. Spiro, Rand J.
    1980 Constructive processes in prose comprehension and recall. InTheoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension, Rand J. Spiro et al. (eds). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 245–278.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Sternberg, Meir
    1978 Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. 1990 Telling in time (I): Chronology and narrative theory. Poetics Today11 (4): 901–948. 10.2307/1773082
     https://doi.org/10.2307/1773082 [Google Scholar]
  47. 1992 Telling in time (II): Chronology, teleology, narrativity. Poetics Today13 (3): 463–541. 10.2307/1772872
     https://doi.org/10.2307/1772872 [Google Scholar]
  48. 2001 How narrativity makes a difference. Narrative9 (2): 115–122.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. 2010 Narrativity: From objectivist to functional paradigm. Poetics Today31 (3): 507–659. 10.1215/03335372‑2010‑004
     https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-2010-004 [Google Scholar]
  50. Swift, Graham
    1983 Waterland. New York: Random House.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Swirsky, Peter
    2010 Literature, Analytically Speaking: Explorations in the Theory of Interpretation, Analytic Aesthetics and Evolution. Austin: University of Texas Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Todorov, Tzvetan
    1977 The Poetics of Prose. Ithaca: Cornell.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Toolan, Michael
    2009 Narrative Progression in the Short Story: A Corpus Stylistic Approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/lal.6
     https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.6 [Google Scholar]
  54. 2016 Musical narrativity. InNarrative Sequence in Contemporary Narratology, Raphaël Baroni & Françoise Revaz (eds). Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 130–150.
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Turner, Mark
    1987 Death Is the Mother of Beauty: Mind, Metaphor, Criticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Vernay, Jean-François
    2014 The truth about fiction as possible worlds, Journal of Language, Literature and Culture61 (2): 133–141. 10.1179/2051285614Z.00000000035
     https://doi.org/10.1179/2051285614Z.00000000035 [Google Scholar]
  57. von Wright, George H.
    1951 An Essay in Modal Logic. Amsterdam: North Holland.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Williams, Raymond
    1988 Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Wolf, Werner
    2005 Music and narrative. InRoutledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, David Herman, Manfred Jahn & Marie-Laure Ryan (eds). New York: Routledge, 324–329.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/etc.00008.can
Loading
The rhythms of narrative tension and its cultural satisfaction
English Text Construction 11, 169 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.00008.can
/content/journals/10.1075/etc.00008.can
/content/journals/10.1075/etc.00008.can
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): 300; cultural-semantic tool; Frank Miller; modality; narrative progression; narrative rhythm; narrative tension

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error