Narrative Theory: A reading list

Our colleague, H. Porter Abbott, at UCSB teaches a great course on Narrative theory, which includes this awesome reading list… Enjoy:

 

1. Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
   2002.
2. Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: U of Toronto
   P, 1985.
3. Barthes, Roland. “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives” in Image
   -Music Text, reprinted in A Barthes Reader, Susan Sontag (ed.). New York: Hill
   & Wang, 1982, 251 295.
4. —————. S/Z, Richard Miller (trans.). New York: Hill & Wang, 1974.
5. Chatman, Seymour. Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film.
   Ithaca: Cornell U P, 1990.
6. —————-. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca:
   Cornell U P, 1978.
7. Cohn, Dorrit. Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in
   Fiction. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1978.
8. —————-. The Distinction of Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999.
9. Genette, Gèrard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay on Method, trans. Jane E. Lewin. Ithaca:
   Cornell U P, 1972.
10. —————-. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, Jane E. Lewin (trans.). Cambridge:
    Cambridge U P, 1997.
11. Prince, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1987.
12. —————-. Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin: Mouton, 1982.
13. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen,
    1983.
14. Scholes, Robert, and Robert Kellogg. The Nature of Narrative. New York: Oxford U P,
    1966.
15. More Reading of Interest
16. Andrew, Dudley. “Adaptation” in Concepts in Film Theory. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1984,
    98-104.
17. Aristotle, trans. Ingram Bywater. “De Poetica [Poetics]” in Richard McKeon (ed.),
    Introduction to Aristotle. New York: Random House, 1947, 624-667.
18. Bhabha, Homi K. (ed.). Nation and Narration. London: Routledge, 1990.
19. Boardman, Michael M. Narrative Innovation and Incoherence. Durham: Duke U P,
    1992.
20. Booth, Alison. Famous Last Words: Changes in Gender and Narrative Closure.
    Charlottesville: U P of Virginia, 1993.
21. Booth, Wayne. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1961.
22. Bordwell, David. Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1985.
23. Branigan, Edward. Narrative Comprehension and Film. London: Routledge, 1992.
24. Britton, Bruce K. & A. D. Pellegrini (eds.). Narrative Thought & Narrative Language.
    Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1990.
25. Brooks, Peter. Reading for the Plot. New York: Random House, 1985.
26. Brooks, Peter and Paul Gewirtz (eds.). Law’s Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law.
    New Haven: Yale U P, 1996.
27. Bruner, Jerome. “Two Modes of Thought” in Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Cambridge:
    Harvard U P, 1986, 11-43.
28. —————–. Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, and
    Giroux, c2002.
29. —————–. “The Narrative Construction of ‘Reality'” in Massimo Ammaniti and
    Daniel N. Stern (eds.), Psychoanalysis and Development: Representations and
    Narratives. New York: New York U P, 1994, pp. 15-38.
30. Chambers, Ross. Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction.
    Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984.
31. —————–. Room for Maneuver: Reading Oppositional Narrative. U of Chicago P,
    1991.
32. Currie, Mark. Postmodern Narrative Theory. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1998.
33. Fehn, Ann, Ingeborg Hoesterey, and Maria Tatar (eds.). Neverending Stories: Toward a
    Critical Narratology. Princeton U P, 1992.
34. Fludernick, Monica. Towards a Natural Narratology. London: Routledge, 1996.
35. Forster, E. M. Aspects of the Novel. London: Harcourt, 1927.
36. Gibson, Andrew. Towards a Postmodern Theory of Narrative. Edinburgh U P, 1996.
37. Greimas, Algirdas-Julien. Structural Semantics:an Attempt at a Method, trans.
    Daniele McDowell, et al. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1983.
38. Hayles, N. Katherine (ed.), Technocriticism and Hypernarrative, Special Issue, Modern
    Fiction Studies 43:3 (1997).
39. Herman, David (ed.). Narratologies: New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis, Columbus:
    Ohio State U P, 1999.
40. —————— (ed.). Narrative Theory & the Cognitive Sciences. Stanford: CSLI, 2003.
41. Iser, Wolfgang. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from
    Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U P, 1974.
42. Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act.
    Ithaca: Cornell U P, 1981.
43. Kermode, Frank. The Art of Telling. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1983.
44. ————–. The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative. Cambridge:
    Harvard U P, 1979.
45. ————–. The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. Oxford: Oxford
    U P, 1966.
46. Landow, George P. “Reconfiguring Narrative” in Hypertext 2.0: the Convergence of
    Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U P,
    1997; revised, 178-218.
47. Lanser, Susan Snaider. Fictions of Authority: Women Writers and Narrative Voice.
    Ithaca: Cornell U P, 1992.
48. Martin, Wallace. Recent Theories of Narrative. Ithaca: Cornell U P, 1986.
49. Mezei, Kathy (ed.). Ambiguous Discourse: Feminist Narratology and British Women
    Writers. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1996.
50. Nichols, Bill. Ideology and the Image: Social Representation in the Cinema and Other
    Media. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1981.
51. Mihailescu, Calin-Andrei, and Walid Hamarneh (eds.). Fiction Updated: Theories of
    Fictionality, Narratology, and Poetics. U of Toronto P, 1996.
52. Miller, J. Hillis. Reading Narrative Discourse. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1998.
53. Mitchell, W. J. T. (ed.). On Narrative. U of Chicago P, 1981.
54. Morson, Gary Saul. Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. New Haven: Yale
    U P, 1994.
55. O’Neill, Patrick. Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory. U of Toronto P, 1994.
56. Pascal, Roy. The Dual Voice : Free Indirect Speech and its Functioning in the
    Nineteenth-Century European Novel. Manchester: Manchester U P, 1977.
57. Phelan, James. Reading People, Reading Plots: Character, Progression, and the
    Interpretation of Narrative. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989.
58. ———- (ed.). Understanding Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State U P, 1994.
59. Rabinowitz, Peter J. Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of
    Interpretation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell U P, 1987.
60. Rabkin, Eric S. Narrative Suspense. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1973.
61. Richardson, Brian. Unlikely Stories: Causality and the Nature of Modern Narrative.
    Newark: U of Delaware P, 1997.
    Richter, David H. Fable’s End: Completeness and Closure in Rhetorical Fiction.
    Chicago: U of Chicago P. 1974.
62. ———. Narrative/Theory. New York: Longman, 1996.
63. Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative, Volumes I, II, & III, Kathleen McLaughlin and David
    Pellauer(trans.). Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1984, 1985, 1988.
64. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. A Glance Beyond Doubt: Narration, Representation,
    Subjectivity. Columbus: Ohio State U P, 1996.
65. Ryan, Marie-Laure. Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory.
    Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1991.
66. Schank, Roger C. Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence. Evanston: Northwestern
    U P, 1990.
67. Simion, Eugen. The Return of the Author. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1996.
68. Sternberg, Meir. Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction. Baltimore:
    Johns Hopkins UP, 1978.
69. Storey, Robert. Mimesis & the Human Animal: On the Biogenetic Foundations of
    Literary Representation. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1996)
70. Sturgess, Philip J. M. Narrativity: Theory and Practice. Oxford U P, 1992.
71. Tomkins, Jane P (ed.). Reader-Response Criticism: from Formalism to Post-
    Structuralism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980.
72. Torgovnick, Mariana. Closure in the Novel. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1981.
73. White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe.
    Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U P, 1973.
74. ———–. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation.
    (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U P, 1987).
75. Whittock, Trevor. Metaphor and Film. Cambridge U P, 1990.
76. Williams, Jeffrey. Theory and the Novel: Narrative Reflexivity in the British Tradition.
    Cambridge U P, 1998.