The Complex Image

Fichtelberg, Joseph

doi:10.9783/9781512801835

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Compared with "Life as a Slave" of 1855, Narrative of 1845 covers the same period of Douglas's life (as noted by, for instance, Andrews 1986; Fichtelberg 1989) but strikingly leaves out many things and hence often displays what we call "intertextual ellipses." Interestingly, if we view the matter from the position of the later autobiography as compared with the earlier, the same differences may be regarded as "intertextual additions."…”

Section: Intertextual Unreliability: Douglass's Autobiographies Of 18mentioning

confidence: 94%

“…At the time Douglass wrote the second autobiography, he was living in the North and had "acquired a reputation as one of the nation's foremost public speakers" (Fichtelberg 1989: 17; see also Andrews 1986: 216-18;Blassingame 2003: xiii-xiv;Stauffer 2003: xxiii). And one of his aims seemed to be to win more approval, support, and popularity among "his predominantly white audience" (Fichtelberg 1989: 17) or white readers.…”

Section: Poetics Todaymentioning

confidence: 97%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Intratextuality, Extratextuality, Intertextuality: Unreliability in Autobiography versus Fiction

Shen¹,

Xu²

2007

Poetics Today

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This essay attempts to define unreliability in autobiography and explore its major forms and features in relation to unreliability in fiction. It starts with the construction of a narratological framework for autobiography, especially in terms of the narrative communicative situation. Then it goes on to discuss two contrasting approaches to fictional unreliability, the rhetorical and the cognitivist or construc-tivist. The rhetorical approach deals, in an idealized way, with the gap between the narrator and the implied author and is only concerned with the “implied ” or “autho-rial ” reader (critics who try to enter that position). The constructivist approach, by contrast, is also concerned with how actual readers try to resolve textual problems with different integration mechanisms. The present study defines and explores auto-biographical unreliability in relation to both the rhetorical model and the construc-tivist model in fiction studies. To illustrate autobiographical unreliability, this essay analyzes two autobiographies by Frederick Douglass in terms of intertextual unreli-ability and a recent Chinese autobiography in terms of extratextual (un)reliability. In both cases, the divergent responses highlight the functioning of different integration mechanisms. The analysis brings to light certain integration mechanisms peculiar to the interpretation of autobiography and, moreover, shows how the same integration mechanism can be used to opposed effects. We are very grateful to Meir Sternberg and the anonymous readers of Poetics Today for help-ful comments on earlier drafts of this essay. Poetics Today 28:1 (Spring 2007) doi 10.1215/03335372-2006-01

show abstract

Section: Intertextual Unreliability: Douglass's Autobiographies Of 18mentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Poetics Todaymentioning

confidence: 97%