Lecture Notes Week 06
The following content is to help you prepare for our seminar on the 27th of April. The topic of the seminar is Fictional Rhetoric or Fictionality as Rhetoric. The topic is lead by Francesca.
Below you'll find the text for you to read before our meeting. Please go through the following instructions as you develop your ideas about the topic further.
Reading
Instructions
We have more or less understood what is rhetoric at this point. What is fiction, though? And how can fiction and rhetoric be connected, in your opinion? Is fiction always narrative? Can fiction be a rhetorical strategy in itself?
What is the difference between fiction and fictionality?
If fictionality (see article) is “a quality of fiction as communication, not a quality of its referent or object of representation”, in what ways can a rhetorical approach help us in defining and understanding fictionality?
Think in particular about:
Narrative creation and reception as communicative gestures
Rhetoric, fiction and truth
Rhetoric, fiction and mimesis
Emotional involvement in fiction: the role of rhetoric
Think about a novel you like, and try to see if thinking about it within the framework of a rhetorical approach changes something about how you interpret it 😊 we will discuss it then in class.
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