Enric Sullà, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Description
The course will be an introduction to the theory of narrative or narratology which will not limit itself to theoretical problems but will always be seeking both to combine narrative theory with various trends of contemporary literary theory context and to apply concepts and analytical procedures to narrative texts. Thus, structural and recent narrative theory will be approached in the wider context of contemporary literary theory and subsequently tried onto 19th and 20th century novels and short stories, with the possibility of including hypertext narratives. Of course these narratives will either be written originally in English or translated into English.

The course would include both lectures on theoretical points and seminar discussions of narrative texts. Among the theory subjects to be studied there will be: narratology as theoretical project narrativity, fictionality, narrative communication, genre conventions, narrative as text, and the reading process.

The course does only require some knowledge of the more general concepts of literary theory and a basic idea of the modern narrative tradition.

Among the narratives discussed there would be some produced by great 19th century short story writers like Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chekhov, Aleksandr Pushkin, Edgar A. Poe or Henry James. From the 20th century there will be novels like Mrs. Dalloway, by V. Woolf, or The metamorphosis, by F. Kafka. Between the short stories there will certainly be J. Joyce, besides J. Barth, J. L. Borges or J. Cortázar.

Evaluation
The students would be required to individually analyse some aspect of a narrative text during the term. Thus, the final grade would take into account: class participation, including the analysis of a text (20%), a paper delivered at the end of term (50%), and an exam on theoretical concepts (30%). The final paper would be study either a short story or a novel chosen in agreement with the professor. The student would always be required to previously submit the outline of this paper.

Reading list

a) Required reading
H. Porter Abbott (2002), The Cambridge introduction to narrative, Cambridge, Cambridge UP.
Peter Cobley (2001), Narrative, London, Routledge.
David Lodge (1992), The art of fiction, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan (1983), Narrative fiction: Contemporary poetics, London, Methuen, 2002.

b) Suggested reading
Wayne Booth (1961), The rhetoric of fiction, Chicago, Chicago UP, 1983.
Cleanth Brooks & Robert Penn Warren (1959), Understanding fiction, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts (2nd edition). It is also a good anthology of short stories for study.
Seymour Chatman (1978), Story and discourse: Narrative structure in fiction and film, Ithaca, Cornell UP.
Seymour Chatman (1990), Coming to terms, Ithaca, Cornell UP.
Umberto Eco (1994), Six walks in the fictional woods, Cambridge, Harvard UP.
David Herman (ed.) (1999), Narratologies, Columbus, Ohio UP.
Richard Kearney (2002), On stories, London, Routledge.
George P. Landow (1992), Hypertext: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins UP.
Wallace Martin (1986), Recent theories of narrative, Ithaca, Cornell UP.
Michael J. Toolan (1988), Narrative: A critical linguistic introduction, London, Routledge.