Bücher von Wolf Schmid

Mental events, changes that take place in the consciousness of the narrated characters or the narrating entity, are an essential theme of narrative works. This book first undertakes a typologization of the procedures by means of which the content of consciousness is represented, as well as outlining the conditions of events and the criteria of eventfulness. Then, classic narrative works from various cultures and epochs ¿ from Parzival and Tristan, through Samuel Richardson and Jane Austen, to Fëdor Dostoevskij and Anton ¿exov ¿ are examined in terms of how mental events are shaped in them. The book follows three guiding questions. What philosophy of events and consciousness is expressed in the works? How disposed are different cultures and epochs to eventfulness? To what extent do they allow for the presentation of fundamental mental changes?

The Narratologiaseries publishes state-of-the-art monographs and collective volumes devoted to modern narrative theory and its historical reconstruction in all the philological disciplines. It is the first narratological forum of its kind in Germany. In addition to literary texts, the series focuses on narration in everyday contexts, in pictorial media, in film and in the new media as well as on narration in historiography, ethnology, medicine, and the law. The series publishes in German and English. All volumes are peer reviewed by two anonymous assessors.

This book is a standard work for modern narrative theory. It provides a terminological and theoretical system of reference for future research. The author explains and discusses in detail problems of communication structure and entities of a narrative work, point of view, the relationship between narrators text and characters text, narrativity and eventfulness, and narrative transformations of happenings. The book outlines a theory of narration and analyses central narratological categories such as fiction, mimesis, author, reader, narrator etc. A detailed bibliography and glossary of narratological terms make this book a compendium of narrative theory which is of relevance for scholars and students of all literary disciplines.