Prof. dr. Monica Bottez

Three Great Canadian Novelists: Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, Michael Ondaatje

(A Thematic and Narratological Approach)

– an optional course 2011_2012 semester II –

1. Principles of fictional organization: causality and chronology

2. Northrop Frye’s four forms of prose fiction; realism vs. allegory

3. Story (fable) time vs. narrative; story time vs. narrative time: The Diviners, The Handmaid’s

Tale, The English Patient

4. Event: ordering, duration, frequency: The Diviners

5. Narration and focalization; types of narrators and focalizers; narrative perspective: The

Penelopiad

6. Narrator’s report of action, speech and thought; narrative distance: The English Patient

7. Metafictional comments: The Diviners, The Handmaid’s Tale

8 .Intertextuality: The English Patient; The Penelopiad

9. Character and chracterization: realistic vs. archetypal characters, The Fire-Dwellers, The

Penelopiad

10. Space: metaphoric vs. metonymic description; urban vs rural; “real” vs imaginary place: The

Fire-Dwellers, The Diviners, The Handmaid’s Tale

11. The picture of Canadian society as represented in the selected novels

12. National identity and World War II; The British Empire: centre and periphery as represented in

the selected novels

Bibliography

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale(1988), The Penelopiad (2005)

Laurence, Margaret. The Fire-Dwellers (1969); The Diviners (1974)

Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient (1992)

Bottez, Monica. Analysing Narrative Fiction: Reading Strategies. Bucharest: EUB, 2007

Course requirements and evaluation:

A 5-page essay to be presented in class

Final colloquium on the theoretical concepts with illustrations from 3 novels at the student’s choice