Walsh, Richard orcid.org/0000-0002-6409-6916 (2016) The Fictive Reflex:A Fresh Look at Reflexiveness and Narrative Representation. Neohelicon. pp. 379-389. ISSN 1588-2810
Abstract
Reflexiveness in literary contexts tends to be assimilated to self-reference; to the various ways in which a work may foreground the artifice and conventionality of its own features as representation, narrative or language. In this sense it is equated with metafiction, and regarded as a sophisticated and highly self-conscious use of narrative; here, however, I offer a contrary view of reflexiveness, one which sees it as elementary, pervasive, and constitutive of fictionality. In this view, there is a continuity between the basic logic of mimesis and the self-conscious “baring of the device” that, for the Russian Formalists, defines the literary. I begin by clarifying the nature of (fictive) representation as an act, and identify its intrinsic reflexiveness, and go on to compare this perspective with both the metafictional notion of reflexiveness and the theoretical discourse on reflexiveness around “mirror neurons” in cognitive literary studies. I then situate reflexiveness within a broader interdisciplinary environment, framed by complex systems science and the conceptualization of emergence in terms of representational recursiveness, which allows the two sides of the discussion so far to be understood as complementary aspects of reflexiveness, one of which aligns with the cultivation of (self-) consciousness, the other with the simple enactment of systemic relations. Finally I address the conceptual challenge presented by an account of narrative, and fiction, based upon reflexiveness, and suggest some ways in which it can be understood.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2016. |
Keywords: | Cognition,Emergence,Fiction,Narrative,Reflexiveness,Representation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > English and Related Literature (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 09 Feb 2016 11:48 |
Last Modified: | 18 Dec 2024 00:05 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-016-0351-z |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s11059-016-0351-z |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:94816 |