Narrative Theory: A Critical Introduction

by Kent Puckett

Kent Puckett's Narrative A Critical Introduction provides an account of a methodology increasingly central to literary studies, film studies, history, psychology and beyond. In addition to introducing readers to some of the field's major figures and their ideas, Puckett situates critical and philosophical approaches towards narrative within a longer intellectual history. The book reveals one of narrative theory's founding claims - that narratives need to be understood in terms of a formal relation between story and discourse, between what they narrate and how they narrate it - both as a necessary methodological distinction and as a problem characteristic of modern thought. Puckett thus shows that narrative theory is not only a powerful descriptive system but also a complex and sometimes ironic form of critique. Narrative Theory offers readers an introduction to the field's key figures, methods and ideas, and it also reveals that field as unexpectedly central to the history of ideas.

Genres: Criticism

360 pages, Paperback

Published November 7, 2016

Reviews

[Molly]

I'm not going to rate this book primarily because I didn't retain any of the information I read. As this book has plenty of good reviews, by which I mean as many as can be expected from a book that as of now doesn't even have the cover on Goodreads, I blame myself more than the book.

Then again, it may have been reviewed primarily by people that have an idea of what narrative theory entails, which may make it a bad introduction to the material. I genuinely don't know.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent introduction into the evolution of narrative theory from Aristotle to Barthes.

[Courtney Bocci · Rating 3 out of 5]

useful information, very dry delivery