What
is the Purpose of Fiction?
“[T]he
purpose of playing . . .was and is,
to hold . . . the mirror up to nature . . . “
--William
Shakespeare, Hamlet III.ii
"Fiction
is like a spider’s web,
attached ever so slightly perhaps,
but still attached to life at all four corners."
--Virginia
Woolf
"Who
reads short stories? one is asked, and I like to think that
they are read
by men and women in the dentist’s office,
waiting to be called to the chair;
they are
read on transcontinental plane trips instead of watching
banal and vulgar film spin out the time between our coasts;
they are
read by discerning and well-informed men and women
who seem to feel that
narrative fiction can contribute to
our understanding of one another and
the sometimes bewildering world around us."
--Raymond
Carver, “Why I Write Short Stories” (1978)
“If in my life I have
developed any ability to understand
those who are other to me,
other in race or
gender or culture or sexual preference,
a good deal
of my training in empathy must have come
from the practice fiction and poetry
have given me in taking on other selves, other lives."
--David
H. Richter, Falling into Theory,
1994
“She
told them that the only grace they could have
was the grace they could imagine.
That if they could not see it, they could not have it.”
--Toni Morrison, Beloved
"Our
first stories come to us through the air. We hear voices.
Children in oral societies grow up within a web of stories. . . .
We listen before we can read. . . .
From listening to the stories of others, we learn to tell our own."
--Margaret
Atwood (1989)
Fall 2001 ENG 104 Syllabus
| Course
Plan | Course
Pack Table of Contents | Assignments | Site
Map
ENG 104 Author Links Table of Contents | (1)
A - E | (2)
F - L | (3) M - Z
Literature
Links | Contexts:
Literary History & Movements | Genre
Studies: Fiction
ENG 104 Course Home
Page
YOU ARE HERE
~ Section I. Storytelling Traditions &
Genre History
from
ENG 104 Course Pack Table of Contents ~ Fall
2001
URL of this webpage:
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng104/coursepack/I_Storytelling.htm
Last Updated:
11 September 2003
This webpage is maintained by Cora
Agatucci, Professor of English,
Humanities Department, Central Oregon
Community College
I welcome comments: cagatucci@cocc.edu
© Cora Agatucci, 1997-2001
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