Title: The texture of everyday life
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2011, vol. 37, iss. 2, pp. [159]-171
Extent
[159]-171
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2011-2-12
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/118147
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
This paper will explore some of the ways in which personal experience turns into life writing; the process in which a record of a life lived becomes a story, such as the textualization of the "texture" of life, or from body to book; the emplotment of the incidences of life into a life narrative (White); the heteroglossia of life writing (Bakhtin); the finding of voice for one's self (Eakin); and the role of memory in life writing (Olney). As a specific backdrop to the discussion, two well-known examples of Canadian literature, Susanna Moodie's Roughing It in the Bush and Margaret Atwood's reinscription The Journals of Susanna Moodie, will be used to exemplify some of the main arguments raised in the paper.
References
[1] Adams, Timothy Dow (2000) Light Writing and Life Writing: Photography in Autobiography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
[2] Anderson, Linda (2001) Autobiography. New Critical Idiom. London: Routledge.
[3] Ashcroft, Bill, et al. (2000) Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. London: Routledge.
[4] Atwood, Margaret (1970) The Journals of Susanna Moodie. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
[5] Bakhtin, Mikhail (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, Michael Holquist (ed.), Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
[6] Barthes, Roland (1977) Image Music Text, Stephen Heath (ed. and trans.). London: Fontana Press.
[7] Conway, Jill Ker (1999) 'Studying Women's Lives'. 1 April 2011. http://www.dce.harvard.edu/pubs/alum/1999/02.html
[8] Eakin, John Paul (1999) How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
[9] Ejxenbaum, Boris Mikhailovich (1978) 'The Theory of the Formal Method'. In: Matejka, L., and K. Pomorska (ed.) Reading in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views. Michigan: Michigan Slavic Publications. 3–37.
[10] Gusdorf, Georges (1980) 'Conditions and Limits of Autobiography'. In: Olney, J. (ed.) Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[11] Hawkes, Terence (1977) Structuralism and Semiotics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[12] Hale, Amanda (2010) 'Imagining Geometry of the Soul'. In: Stephen Hardy, Martina Horáková, Michael M. Kaylor, and Kateřina Prajznerová (ed.), Transgressive (Auto)Biography as Genre and Method (Special issue of Brno Studies in English) 36(2), 61–80.
[13] Hall, Stuart (1996) 'Minimal Selves'. In: Houston A. Baker, Jr., Manthia Diawara, and Ruth H. Lindeborg (ed.) Black British Cultural Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 114–119.
[14] Jakobson, Roman (1990) Language in Literature. Ed. by Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
[15] Jameson, Frederic (1981) The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
[16] Kadar, Marlene (ed.) (1992) Essays on Life Writing: From Genre to Critical Practice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
[17] Kadar, Marlene (2002) 'Life Writing'. In: New, W.H. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 660–666.
[18] Lejeune, Philippe (1982) 'The Autobiographical Contract'. In: Todorov, Tzvetan (ed.) and R. Carter (trans.), French Literary Theory Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 192–222.
[19] Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1972) The Savage Mind. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
[20] Lévi-Strauss, Claude (2002) Myth and Meaning. London: Routledge.
[21] Mitchell, W. J. Thomas (1994) Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[22] Moodie, Susanna (1989) Roughing it in the Bush; or, Life in Canada. New Canadian Library. Toronto: Mc Clelland & Stewart.
[23] Olney, James (1998) Memory and Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[24] Peterman, Michael (1999) Susana Moodie: A Life. Toronto: ECW Press.
[25] Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson (2001) Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[26] Van Toorn, Penny (2000) 'Indigenous Texts and Narratives'. In: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 19–49.
[27] White, Hayden (1980) 'The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality'. Critical Inquiry 7(1), 5–27. | DOI 10.1086/448086
[28] White, Hayden (1990) The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
[29] White, Hayden (2001) 'The Historical Text as Literary Artifact'. In: Leitch, Vincent B. (ed.) The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton. 1709–1729.
[2] Anderson, Linda (2001) Autobiography. New Critical Idiom. London: Routledge.
[3] Ashcroft, Bill, et al. (2000) Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. London: Routledge.
[4] Atwood, Margaret (1970) The Journals of Susanna Moodie. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
[5] Bakhtin, Mikhail (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, Michael Holquist (ed.), Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
[6] Barthes, Roland (1977) Image Music Text, Stephen Heath (ed. and trans.). London: Fontana Press.
[7] Conway, Jill Ker (1999) 'Studying Women's Lives'. 1 April 2011. http://www.dce.harvard.edu/pubs/alum/1999/02.html
[8] Eakin, John Paul (1999) How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
[9] Ejxenbaum, Boris Mikhailovich (1978) 'The Theory of the Formal Method'. In: Matejka, L., and K. Pomorska (ed.) Reading in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views. Michigan: Michigan Slavic Publications. 3–37.
[10] Gusdorf, Georges (1980) 'Conditions and Limits of Autobiography'. In: Olney, J. (ed.) Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[11] Hawkes, Terence (1977) Structuralism and Semiotics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[12] Hale, Amanda (2010) 'Imagining Geometry of the Soul'. In: Stephen Hardy, Martina Horáková, Michael M. Kaylor, and Kateřina Prajznerová (ed.), Transgressive (Auto)Biography as Genre and Method (Special issue of Brno Studies in English) 36(2), 61–80.
[13] Hall, Stuart (1996) 'Minimal Selves'. In: Houston A. Baker, Jr., Manthia Diawara, and Ruth H. Lindeborg (ed.) Black British Cultural Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 114–119.
[14] Jakobson, Roman (1990) Language in Literature. Ed. by Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
[15] Jameson, Frederic (1981) The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
[16] Kadar, Marlene (ed.) (1992) Essays on Life Writing: From Genre to Critical Practice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
[17] Kadar, Marlene (2002) 'Life Writing'. In: New, W.H. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 660–666.
[18] Lejeune, Philippe (1982) 'The Autobiographical Contract'. In: Todorov, Tzvetan (ed.) and R. Carter (trans.), French Literary Theory Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 192–222.
[19] Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1972) The Savage Mind. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
[20] Lévi-Strauss, Claude (2002) Myth and Meaning. London: Routledge.
[21] Mitchell, W. J. Thomas (1994) Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[22] Moodie, Susanna (1989) Roughing it in the Bush; or, Life in Canada. New Canadian Library. Toronto: Mc Clelland & Stewart.
[23] Olney, James (1998) Memory and Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[24] Peterman, Michael (1999) Susana Moodie: A Life. Toronto: ECW Press.
[25] Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson (2001) Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[26] Van Toorn, Penny (2000) 'Indigenous Texts and Narratives'. In: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 19–49.
[27] White, Hayden (1980) 'The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality'. Critical Inquiry 7(1), 5–27. | DOI 10.1086/448086
[28] White, Hayden (1990) The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
[29] White, Hayden (2001) 'The Historical Text as Literary Artifact'. In: Leitch, Vincent B. (ed.) The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton. 1709–1729.