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Topic outline

 

  • Time: 20 hours
    Level: Intermediate

 
 

Introduction

  • Introduction Resource
  • This unit is designed to help you develop the analytical skills needed for studying literary texts at university level.
 

1 Why do we read prose fiction?

  • 1 Why do we read prose fiction? Resource
  • Prose fiction, whether in the form of the novel or the short story, is unarguably the most popular and widely consumed literary genre. One only has to see the proliferation of bookstalls at railway stations...
 

2 The elements of narrative

  • 2.1 The act of reading Resource
  • The act of reading has been characterised by Robert DiYanni as involving three interrelated processes: experience, interpretation, and evaluation. The first thing we do when we read a novel is to experience...
  • 2.2 Narrative events Resource
  • Any narrative is made up of a series of events or incidents, arranged in a particular way. This can be defined as the plot of the story. Consider, as an example, Ernest Hemingway’s appropriately entitled...
  • 2.3 Narrative perspectives Resource
  • Two of the most fundamental choices that face the author of a fictional narrative is to decide who is to be the narrator and how the story is to be narrated.
  • 2.4 Setting Resource
  • We can define the ‘setting’ of a story as the geographical location or locations in which the events of the narrative takes place, as well as the time in which those events are set. Location can refer...
  • 2.5 Characterisation Resource
  • How do writers of prose fiction make us respond to the imaginary people they create? In order to encourage us to continue reading writers must force us to react in some way to their characters, whether...
  • 2.6 Genre Resource
  • In The Realist Novel Dennis Walder provides you with an extract from a detective novel to identify, and suggests that you'll find this relatively easy because it contains certain features that we expect...
  • 2.7 Style and language Resource
  • What do we mean when we talk of a particular writer's style? It might help us to think of style as a way of organising and expressing narrative unique to the writer, as distinctive and personal a characteristic...
 

3 Conclusion

  • 3 Conclusion Resource
  • In this unit you have been introduced to the main components of prose fiction and have been given the opportunity to develop and practise your critical and analytical skills. These are essential skills...
 

Glossary

 

References and Acknowledgements

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