Publisher Description

From Homer to Hollywood, the western storytelling tradition has canonised a distinctive set of narrative values characterised by tight economy and closure. This book traces the formation of that classical paradigm in the development of ancient storytelling from Homer to Heliodorus. To tell this story, the book sets out to rehabilitate the idea of 'plot', notoriously disconnected from any recognised system of terminology in recent literary theory. The first part of the book draws on current developments in narratology and cognitive science to propose a new way of formally describing the way stories are structured and understood. This model is then used to write a history of the emergence of the classical plot type in the four ancient genres that shaped it - Homeric epic, fifth-century tragedy, New Comedy, and the Greek novel - with new insights into the fundamental narrative poetics of each.

Table of Contents

Part I. The Classical Plot: 1. Approaches; 2. A cognitive model; 3. The narrative universe; 4. The classical plot; 5. Unclassical plots; Part II. The Classical Plots: 6. Epic myth I: Iliad; 7. Epic myth II: Odyssey; 8. Dramatic myth: tragedy and satyr-play; 9. Dramatic fiction: New Comedy; 10. Epic fiction: the Greek novel; Conclusion; Glossary.

Review

'This brilliant book … is immensely rewarding … it is stimulating stuff and certain to cause major reconsiderations in the way we think about plots ancient and modern.' Literary Review

Promotional

How western literature developed the economical plotting still supreme in modern fiction and cinema.

Review Quote

'This brilliant book … is immensely rewarding … it is stimulating stuff and certain to cause major reconsiderations in the way we think about plots ancient and modern.' Literary Review

Promotional "Headline"

How western literature developed the economical plotting still supreme in modern fiction and cinema.

Description for Bookstore

This is the story of how western literature first developed its distinctive taste for the kind of tight, economical plotting still supreme in modern fiction and cinema. The book shows how this taste was formed in Greco-Roman antiquity out of a series of revolutions in storytelling.

Description for Library

This is the story of how western literature first developed its distinctive taste for the kind of tight, economical plotting still supreme in modern fiction and cinema. The book shows how this taste was formed in Greco-Roman antiquity out of a series of revolutions in storytelling.

Details