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Zusatztext In this wide-ranging comparative study Toribio Vazquez extends our understanding of post-Nietzschean poetics. His corpus of canonical and non-canonical 20th-century writers exploit structures of circularity for a variety of purposes, from the axiological and psychological to the existential and self-referential. This is an ambitious and impressive piece of work. Informationen zum Autor Juan Luis Toribio Vazquez is Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi. Klappentext Breaking with linearity - the ruling narrative model in the Jewish-Christian tradition since the ancient world - many 20th-century European writers adopted circular narrative forms. Juan Luis Toribio Vazquez shows this trend was not a unified nor conscious movement, but rather a series of works arising sporadically in different countries at different times, using a variety of circular structures to express similar concerns and ideas about the world. This study also shows how the renewed understanding of narrative form leading to this circular trend was anticipated by Nietzsche's critiques of truth, knowledge, language and metaphysics, and especially by his related discussions of nihilism and the eternal recurrence. Starting with an analysis of the theory and genealogy of linear narrative, the author charts the emergence of Nietzsche's idea of eternal return, before then turning to the history of the circular narrative trend. This history is explored from its inception, in the works of August Strindberg, Gertrude Stein and Azorín; through its development in the interwar years, by writers such as Raymond Queneau and Vladimir Nabokov; to its full flowering in the work of authors James Joyce or Samuel Beckett, among others; and its later employment by post-war writers, including Alain Robbe-Grillet, Italo Calvino and Maurice Blanchot. Through a series of close readings, the book aims to highlight the various ways in which narrative circularity serves to break with an essentially teleological and theological thinking. Finally, Toribio Vazquez concludes by proposing a new typology of non-linear narratives, which builds on the work of recent narratologists. Vorwort Traces the emergence and development of a circular narrative trend in 20th-century European literature, exploring its relationship to Nietzsche’s philosophy, particularly his idea of eternal recurrence. Zusammenfassung Breaking with linearity – the ruling narrative model in the Jewish-Christian tradition since the ancient world – many 20th-century European writers adopted circular narrative forms. Juan Luis Toribio Vazquez shows this trend was not a unified nor conscious movement, but rather a series of works arising sporadically in different countries at different times, using a variety of circular structures to express similar concerns and ideas about the world. This study also shows how the renewed understanding of narrative form leading to this circular trend was anticipated by Nietzsche’s critiques of truth, knowledge, language and metaphysics, and especially by his related discussions of nihilism and the eternal recurrence.Starting with an analysis of the theory and genealogy of linear narrative, the author charts the emergence of Nietzsche’s idea of eternal return, before then turning to the history of the circular narrative trend. This history is explored from its inception, in the works of August Strindberg, Gertrude Stein and Azorín; through its development in the interwar years, by writers such as Raymond Queneau and Vladimir Nabokov; to its full flowering in the work of authors James Joyce or Samuel Beckett, among others; and its later employment by post-war writers, including Alain Robbe-Grillet, Italo Calvino and Maurice Blanchot. Through a series of close readings, the book aims to highlight the various ways in which narrative circularity serves to break with an essentially teleological and theologi...
