The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative

N. J. Lowe

ISBN 10: 0521771765 / ISBN 13: 9780521771764

Published by Cambridge University Press, 2000

About this Item

Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - From Homer to Hollywood, the western storytelling tradition has canonised a distinctive set of narrative values characterised by tight economy and closure. This book traces the formation of that classical paradigm in the development of ancient storytelling from Homer to Heliodorus. To tell this story, the book sets out to rehabilitate the idea of 'plot', notoriously disconnected from any recognised system of terminology in literary theory. The first part of the book draws on developments in narratology and cognitive science to propose a way of formally describing the way stories are structured and understood. This model is then used to write a history of the emergence of the classical plot type in the four ancient genres that shaped it - Homeric epic, fifth-century tragedy, New Comedy, and the Greek novel - with insights into the fundamental narrative poetics of each.

Seller Inventory # 9780521771764

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521771765
• ISBN 13: 9780521771764
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 235W x 157H x 23D millimeters 235 millimeters width by 157 millimeters height by 23 millimeters depth
• Weight: 653 grams

About this title

Synopsis

This is the story of how Western literature first developed its distinctive taste for the kind of tight, economical plotting still employed in modern fiction and cinema. The book shows how this taste was formed in Greco-Roman antiquity out of a series of revolutions in storytelling, centered on Homer, early tragedy, Hellenistic comedy, and the Greek love-novels of the early centuries AD. Along the way, it draws on cognitive science and current literary theory to offer a resilient yet accessible new theory of what "plot" is and how it works.

Review

"A rare, even unique offering." Choice

"This book deserves attention from tose interested in deep structures of Greek and dependent literary traditions." Donald Lateiner, Ohio University