The Discovery of Point of View (Hardcover)

Martin Klepper

ISBN 10: 3825358542 / ISBN 13: 9783825358549

Published by Universitatsverlag Winter, 2011

About this Item

Hardcover. The nineteenth century, like no century before or after, witnessed a revolution in narrative devices differentiating perspective and focalization. While narratives of the 1790s were all but dominated by either strictly authorial, confessional or epistolary formats, the entire gamut of modernist techniques had evolved by 1910: interior focalization, figuralization and reflectorization, stream of consciousness, unreliable narration, the dual voice. This book explores the reasons for this development, drawing on Niklas Luhmann's theory of second-order observation and the historical changes in visuality and spectatorship. It historicizes the emergence of point of view as a central narrative technique and as theoretical concept in literature, but also in philosophy, physiology, optics, psychology and sociology. From the rise of the novel in England it traces the sources and modes of complex literary perspectives through Romanticism and the American Renaissance to the modernist novels of Henry James. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9783825358549

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Discovery of Point of View (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Universitatsverlag Winter
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3825358542
• ISBN 13: 9783825358549
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The nineteenth century, like no century before or after, witnessed a revolution in narrative devices differentiating perspective and focalization. While narratives of the 1790s were all but dominated by either strictly authorial, confessional or epistolary formats, the entire gamut of modernist techniques had evolved by 1910: interior focalization, figuralization and reflectorization, stream of consciousness, unreliable narration, the dual voice. This book explores the reasons for this development, drawing on Niklas Luhmann's theory of second-order observation and the historical changes in visuality and spectatorship. It historicizes the emergence of point of view as a central narrative technique and as theoretical concept in literature, but also in philosophy, physiology, optics, psychology and sociology. From the rise of the novel in England it traces the sources and modes of complex literary perspectives through Romanticism and the American Renaissance to the modernist novels of Henry James.