The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative

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

N. J. Lowe (Author)

9780521771764, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 June 2000

308 pages, 9 tables
23.6 x 16.1 x 2.4 cm, 0.56 kg

'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

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 literary theory. The first part of the book draws on developments in narratology and cognitive science to propose a 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 insights into the fundamental narrative poetics of each.

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.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]