Crafting a Shared Universe: An Interdisciplinary Poetics of Narrative

Abstract

Both narrative theorists and practicing writers are committed to understanding the general mechanisms underlying the inventive and communicative achievements of literary art, yet there is a lack of interdisciplinary conversations between narratology and creative writing. My dissertation Crafting a Shared Universe makes a case for bringing together narratology and master writers’ craft knowledge by demonstrating a) that instruction in creative writing offers independent testimony and nuanced enrichment to the foundational premises of James Phelan’s rhetorical narratology, b) that this synthesis can be further empowered by cognitive humanities—such as cognitive psychology and the psychology of aesthetics—to illuminate what constitutes masterful storytelling and rhetorical communication, c) that unnatural narratology can be integrated into rhetorical, creative, and interdisciplinary practices to invigorate the bonding and reparative potentials of unnatural storytelling, d) and that rhetorical criticism can guide working writers to further hone their craft by developing a systematic understanding of shared rhetorical interactions. In putting forward an interdisciplinary practice of rhetorical criticism, I also delve into the art of giving a meaningful shape and balance to slant, rhythmic, or multilayered associations and forward subtextual instabilities to achieve bonding and reparative effects. Specifically, craft can be bonding in that it may deepen readers’ empathic resonance with the world of literary imagination. Craft can also be reparative as it may subsume chaotic and blemished realities under an improved, broader vision of hope and interconnection. By the same logic, rhetorical criticism can be bonding and reparative in the sense of examining textual phenomena in relation to what writers and readers can possibly share and moving outward toward a future-oriented, broad-minded vision of what craft can possibly reform. To illustrate bonding, reparative, and unnatural storytelling, I will connect authors’ creative endeavors and readers’ possible shared engagement in works of fiction including We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and Life of Pi as well as in the screenplay Anatomy of a Fall.