A Dictionary of Narratology [Paperback]

Gerald Prince (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1989

History, literature, religion, myth, film, psychology, theory, and daily conversation all rely heavily upon narrative. So it is hardly surprising that studies of the art of narrative abound. Narrative has a language much its own, with regularly recurring patterns, deeply established conventions for transmission, and interpretive codes, whether in a novel, cartoon, or case study. Cutting across many disciplines, narratology describes and analyzes this language, and only recently have serious attempts been made to regularize it to permit one expert to understand another. In A Dictionary of Narratology, Gerald Prince provides quick and reliable access to terms and concepts that are defined, illustrated, and cross-referenced. All entries are keyed to articles or books in which the terms originate or are exemplified. Important as the first book of its kind, A Dictionary of Narratology should prove indispensable to writers, critics, and scholars in many fields.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“An essential book for the study of narrative.”—Southern Humanities Review

(Southern Humanities Review )

“A Dictionary of Narratology is a remarkable feat. It is a specialized dictionary documenting important research, compiled by a scholar who has been centrally involved in the field and who writes with clarity, precision, and a sense of humor.”—Substance

(Substance )

“A very useful compilation of definitions of the terms used in narrative theory. . . . Prince is eclectic and uses the elements of many schools of theory. The book is well cross-referenced and it contains a carefully selected bibliography of the essential works in the field.”—American Literary Scholarship

(American Literary Scholarship ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

"An essential book for the study of narrative."—Southern Humanities Review.

"A Dictionary of Narratology is a remarkable feat. It is a specialized dictionary documenting important research, compiled by a scholar who has been centrally involved in the field and who writes with clarity, precision, and a sense of humor."—Substance.

"A very useful compilation of definitions of the terms used in narrative theory. . . . Prince is eclectic and uses the elements of many schools of theory. The book is well cross-referenced and it contains a carefully selected bibliography of the essential works in the field."—American Literary Scholarship.

History, literature, religion, myth, film, psychology, theory, and daily conversation all rely heavily on narrative. Cutting across many disciplines, narratology describes and analyzes the language of narrative with its regularly recurring patterns, deeply established conventions for transmission, and interpretive codes, whether in novels, cartoons, or case studies.

Indispensable to writers, critics, and scholars in many fields, A Dictionary of Narratology provides quick and reliable access to terms and concepts that are defined, illustrated, and cross-referenced. All entries are keyed to articles or books in which the terms originated or are exemplified. This revised edition contains additional entries and updates some existing ones. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 118 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (August 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803287143
• ISBN-13: 978-0803287143
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,683,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars for the sake of Clarity and Conciseness, October 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Dictionary of Narratology (Paperback)

This is a highly useful dictionary. Although its entries total to just over 100 pages, it is remarkably complete. Prince offers short, to the point explanations of terms that in other dictionaries are notoriously fuzzy explained. Moreover, he provides a very helpful set of crossreferences that goes with each entry, thus enabling the reader to find out more. Among the outstanding explanations is the description of point-of-view, in which Prince sets forth the proposals of Friedman, Genette and Stanzel complete in just two pages. Useful bibliographical references substitute for the fact that Prince could not adress every controversial discussion in full. Everyone interested in literary theory should own a copy, even if the work was not updated to take aboard recent developments.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Essential, but flawed..., December 3, 2008

By 

lmacbeth08 "LMac" (U.S.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Dictionary of Narratology (Revised Edition) (Paperback)

Although I agree with others who claim that this book is essential to those studying narrative, I disagree with respect to its quality. This IS a necessary volume, in that there are many terms specific to narratology that cannot be found elsewhere in the format of a literary dicitionary. This is a very specific way of approaching literature, so naturally its vocabulary is unique. Owning this book can in many instances save hours of study within other tomes.

HOWEVER, the quality of the definitions themselves vary greatly. Many definitions are fantastic, and very complete. They take into account the views of more than one theorist, and that's great. In fact some definitions take up to 3 pages, but other terms are so minimally defined that one is essentially referred to another term in the book, and that's it. And although the bibliography is very complete, it is not annotated.

So the bad news is that if you're a student, you're still going to need to do a lot of reading (especially of those books mentioned in the bibliography) and cull through that info to get to a good working definition of some terms. You may want to consider the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Criticism in addition to this book; that one will certainly save time, but it is not geared toward narratology specifically, so you will need both books.

All in all, if you're a professor or student of graduate level English, you do need this book. Just don't expect the heavens to part once you've bought it.