INTERPRETING NARRATIVE FICTION: HOW MANY WORLDS DO WE NEED? Cover Image

Interpretace narativní fikce: kolik světů je zapotřebí?
INTERPRETING NARRATIVE FICTION: HOW MANY WORLDS DO WE NEED?

Author(s): Petr Koťátko
Subject(s): Theory of Literature
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze - Filozofická fakulta, Vydavatelství
Keywords: Narrative fiction;fictional world; possible world; fictional reference;metafiction;

Summary/Abstract: The author continues in defending the view that the texts of narrative fiction direct our thought and imagination to the real world of our life: the storyworld is the state of the real world we are supposed to accept (in the as if mode) as actual. He argues that in interpreting fiction we do not project counterfactual scenarios or states of affairs into another world, construed for this purpose: instead, we project them into the real world via accepting them (in the as if mode) as facts of this world. This view is incompatible with the fictional worlds theory but admits the application of the apparatus of the possible worlds theory (provided that we accept Saul Kripke’s interpretation of possible worlds as “total ways the world might have been”). The author confronts his position with the views recently presented by Stacie Friend and replies to a new counter-example designed to show that the identification of a storyworld with the real world can be blocked by an explicit metafictional pronouncement.

  • Issue Year: XXX/2020
  • Issue No: 61
  • Page Range: 33-48
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Czech
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