The reader and the page : textual gaps, textual arrangements and images in prose fiction

This thesis is a reader-focused analysis of unconventional graphic devices that appear onthe pages of graphically innovative prose fictions. The main aim is to provide a study ofthe implications that unconventional and graphically disruptive pages have on the readingprocess and how the reader can overcome this challenge and ultimately gain meaningfrom these other modes of signification. The study prioritises the act of 'looking' that isa fundamental part of 'reading' of the page. This focus on the arrangement of text on thepage has been largely neglected by previous literary critics. The materiality of the bookas an object is also fundamental to the understanding of some of the idiosyncratic devicesin the novels featured as examples here.The three main chapters of this thesis explore the implications that textual gaps,textual arrangements and visual images have on the reading process. Each chapter isdevoted to exploring the different effects of each of these three types of device on thereader, and constructs a new critical vocabulary for the analysis of these previouslymarginalised works of prose. Two separate case studies that follow them apply theproduct of the previous three chapters to two exceptionally visual (and criticallymarginalised) novels, Raymond Federman's Double or Nothing: A Real FictitiousDiscourse (1992) and William H. Gass' Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife (1968),respectively. These case studies demonstrate the suitability of applying new terms to thereading of unconventionally presented narratives and show how this focus on the pagecan assist the critical interpretation of'difficult' novels that have previously beenmarginalised by literary critics.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral (Level 8)

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Barton, S

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1337563

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1337563