Title: Violeta Sotirova. Consciousness in Modernist Fiction: A Stylistic Study
Abstract: Violeta Sotirova. Consciousness in Modernist Fiction: A Stylistic Study. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. 2013. xi+216pp. Different from much other research for which points of in fictions are isolated or simply juxtaposed to view same event or object in narrative world from different angles, Consciousness in Modernist Fiction: A Stylistic Study explores indices of interweaving and dialogically relating different viewpoints (ix). Sotirova's relevant research was seen earlier as Experiments with Consciousness in Fiction (2007), in which she analyzes linguistic features of characters' thoughts in Woolf's novels and proves that thoughts are intersubjective and mind-reading advocated by cognitive stylistics is reasonable. In this book she not only expands her data to include D. H. Lawrence's, and James Joyce's novels besides Virginia Woolf's, she also relates dialogicity of consciousnesses to social background and philosophical concern of period. The body part starts with modernists' revolutionary departure from realism in their pursuit of extreme verisimilitude, especially by introducing everyday speech into literature, and two critical controversies surrounding modernism. One controversy is about its preoccupation with form, which is praised by some for its verisimilitude and criticized by others for its lack of historical awareness and with this, it is also seen as signifying an implicit endorsement of a morally disintegrated Capitalist ideological system (12). The second controversy is about its alleged ahistoricity in its adoption of new formal techniques, which is criticized by some as being ignorant of reality but supported by some as indirect engagement with and critique of abruptly changing society. Most of criticisms, however, are narratological or impressionistic, and only a few critics analyzed linguistic features of literature and argued they formally mirror chaotic, formless modern society and are thus negative critiques of it. Against this background, this book is new in that it embarks on deliberate stylistic analysis in order to show that literature is a positive critique of modernity. Chapter 2 clarifies object of study is novels where modernists' revolt against fake chronology and logic is most visible. The chapter highlights most important departure modernism took from its predecessor--realism; realism presents external world as objectively present, while for modernists external world cannot be independent of subjectivity of human beings. Thus modernist novel is most aptly characterized as novel of consciousness(26). The indirect style first adopted by Jane Austen is an important stylistic technique which enables presentation of characters' consciousnesses. But because of the breakdown of grammatical cohesiveness and general drift towards orality(43), novels radicalize this stylistic technique by disrupting coherence and smoothness, using ambiguous references at very beginning of narratives, or using this technique with different linguistic markers of subjectivity and finally breaking down FIS, which presents rational and fully articulated thought by presenting irration and preverbal level of consciousness. The most radical transformation is free gliding between indirect style and interior monologue (39), which exhibits grammatical markers of spoken language and a degree of grammatical incoherence and incompleteness that qualifies it as a transcription of stream of consciousness (48). Chapters 3-5 analyze Lawrence's, Joyce's, and Woolf's presentations of dialogical consciousnesses respectively. In Sons and Lovers, in using indirect style to present Paul and Miriam's emotional experiences, [i]t seems that Lawrence is careful to create links between two characters' inner emotional dispositions in form of exact repetition (59) and conjunctions between their inner discourses. …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-09-22
Language: en
Type: article
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