This paper, as a part of a larger research project entitled Amazon. Realities in the Novels and the Imaginary Reports of Travelers, focuses on the following objectives: (1) the "referentiality" of the text to the...This paper, as a part of a larger research project entitled Amazon. Realities in the Novels and the Imaginary Reports of Travelers, focuses on the following objectives: (1) the "referentiality" of the text to the external world (goal, empirical stuff); and (2) understanding fictionality in terms of"make-believe" and the principle of"internal coherence". The main section sets out the theoretical foundation of the relation between facts/events and fiction, both as pragmatic and fictional texts. Then, the paper investigates in which forms and ways existing facts, data, occurrences, events and narratives in various kinds of texts constitute a representation and interpretation of the world. The central focus of the study is on the Amazon region. The study is an experiment in joining together different types of texts around the notion of"referentiality"; emphasizing reference to the external world (factuality), the reading of the component elements of a language and a discourse (narratology), historical reading against the horizon of expectation (reception theory) and the interpretation of the retrospective.展开更多
Charles Dickens rose to fame as a novelist because he described society in early Victorian Britain both accurately and evocatively. That skill came about through his work as a journalist, and his many first-hand exper...Charles Dickens rose to fame as a novelist because he described society in early Victorian Britain both accurately and evocatively. That skill came about through his work as a journalist, and his many first-hand experiences of events. He continued throughout his life to report on major incidents and newsworthy items, and was able to use those reports as the factual basis of his novels. His experiences of the railways were especially important, and he made great use of them in his novels such as Dombey and Son. Later expereiences included his own involvement in a railway disaster, at Staplehurst in 1865, a major trauma which led him to include the accident at the end of Our Mutual Friend, and led him to write a timely ghost story, The Signalman. No doubt he would have used more such reports had he lived to fulfill his ambitions.展开更多
Postcolonial theory is a well-established critical approach that addresses issues such as the quest for identity, the significance of land, homelessness, resistance, and the encounter between the colonized and the col...Postcolonial theory is a well-established critical approach that addresses issues such as the quest for identity, the significance of land, homelessness, resistance, and the encounter between the colonized and the colonizers. This paper examines the postcolonial elements utilized by the Anglo-Jordanian novelist Fadia Faqir in her novel Pillars of Salt. It discusses the novel's themes and techniques associated with postcolonialism as a literary theory and as a critical approach. Being a postcolonial text, the novel shows the writer's attempt at writing back in response to the colonial past with its power structures and social hierarchies. Thematically, the novel is analyzed with special reference to such topics as the subaltern, Anglo-Jordanian ties, language, othemess, and identity. The paper also traces the continuity of postcolonial discourse in Faqir's novel and gives a short survey of the historical events that provide the background to the main events in this essentially postcolonial work.展开更多
文摘This paper, as a part of a larger research project entitled Amazon. Realities in the Novels and the Imaginary Reports of Travelers, focuses on the following objectives: (1) the "referentiality" of the text to the external world (goal, empirical stuff); and (2) understanding fictionality in terms of"make-believe" and the principle of"internal coherence". The main section sets out the theoretical foundation of the relation between facts/events and fiction, both as pragmatic and fictional texts. Then, the paper investigates in which forms and ways existing facts, data, occurrences, events and narratives in various kinds of texts constitute a representation and interpretation of the world. The central focus of the study is on the Amazon region. The study is an experiment in joining together different types of texts around the notion of"referentiality"; emphasizing reference to the external world (factuality), the reading of the component elements of a language and a discourse (narratology), historical reading against the horizon of expectation (reception theory) and the interpretation of the retrospective.
文摘Charles Dickens rose to fame as a novelist because he described society in early Victorian Britain both accurately and evocatively. That skill came about through his work as a journalist, and his many first-hand experiences of events. He continued throughout his life to report on major incidents and newsworthy items, and was able to use those reports as the factual basis of his novels. His experiences of the railways were especially important, and he made great use of them in his novels such as Dombey and Son. Later expereiences included his own involvement in a railway disaster, at Staplehurst in 1865, a major trauma which led him to include the accident at the end of Our Mutual Friend, and led him to write a timely ghost story, The Signalman. No doubt he would have used more such reports had he lived to fulfill his ambitions.
文摘Postcolonial theory is a well-established critical approach that addresses issues such as the quest for identity, the significance of land, homelessness, resistance, and the encounter between the colonized and the colonizers. This paper examines the postcolonial elements utilized by the Anglo-Jordanian novelist Fadia Faqir in her novel Pillars of Salt. It discusses the novel's themes and techniques associated with postcolonialism as a literary theory and as a critical approach. Being a postcolonial text, the novel shows the writer's attempt at writing back in response to the colonial past with its power structures and social hierarchies. Thematically, the novel is analyzed with special reference to such topics as the subaltern, Anglo-Jordanian ties, language, othemess, and identity. The paper also traces the continuity of postcolonial discourse in Faqir's novel and gives a short survey of the historical events that provide the background to the main events in this essentially postcolonial work.