In this ground breaking work of synthesis, Monika Fludernik combines insights from literary theory and linguistics to provide a challenging new theory of narrative. This book is both an historical survey and theoretical study, with the author drawing on an enormous range of examples from the earliest oral study to contemporary experimental fiction. She uses these examples to prove that recent literature, far from heralding the final collapse of narrative, represents the epitome of a centuries long developmental process.

Fludernik, Monika

Preface, Acknowledgements, Prologue in the wilderness, 1 Towards a `natural' narratology, 2 Natural narrative and other oral modes, 3 From the oral to the written: narrative structure before the novel, 4 The realist paradigm: consciousness, mimesis and the reading of the `real', 5 Reflectorization and figuralization: the malleability of language, 6 Virgin territories: the strategic expansion of deictic options, 7 Games with tellers, telling and told, 8 Natural Narratology, In lieu of an epilogue, Notes, Reference, Texts, Criticism, Author index, Subject index