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Self-Reflexive Metafictional Games in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

Journal Name:

  • Çankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Publication Year:

  • 2012

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Keywords (Original Language):

Author NameUniversity of Author
Abstract (2. Language): 
Tristram Shandy is one of the most extraordinary novels in English literature. Although the novel is written two hundred years before all the contemporary theories, it is a good example for examining the application of several metafictional devices. The novel is the contemporary of Fielding's Tom Jones and Richardson's Pamela; however, it bears little resemblance to these sequential and structurally unified novels. In the novel Tristram does not perform the conventional narrator role as a meaning creating father to his work, and does not sacrifice the formal qualities of the text in order to narrate a complete and sequential story; instead of all these, Tristram consciously and explicitly underlines that he is composing his fictional world in front of his readers. L i k e a metafictional text Tristram Shandy uncovers its own fictionality. B y bringing its own formal functions into absurd prominence and focusing on the self-conscious act of writing rather than on the thing being represented, Tristram Shandy committed itself to a type called metafiction. The aim of this paper is to seek out the self-reflexive metafictional devices in Tristram Shandy.
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Abstract (Original Language): 
Tristram Shandy İngiliz Edebiyatı"nın sıradışı eserlerinden biridir. Roman, günümüz teorilerinden iki yüzyıl kadar önce yazılmasına rağmen birçok üst-kurgusal tekniği incelemek için i y i bir örnektir. Roman Fielding'in Tom Jones ve Richardson'nın Pamela adlı eserlerinin çağdaşı olsa da bu yapısal bütünlük içeren eserlerle hemen hemen hiç benzerlik göstermez. Romanda Tristram anlamı belirleyen geleneksel an¬ latıcı rolünden uzaktır ve biçimsel özellikleri tam ve sıralı bir hikaye anlatmak uğruna feda etmez. Bunların yerine Tristram, bilinçli ve kendini yansıtan bir şekilde kurgusal dünyasını okuyucularının gözü önünde oluşturur. B i r üstkurgusal eser gibi Tristram Shandy kendi yazım aşamasını anlatır. Olanları yansıtmak yerine yazım aşamasının farkında olan roman, kendi kurgusallığını absurd bir şekilde açığa vurur ve üstkurmaca türüne örnek teşkil eder.
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  • 1
75-88
  • English

REFERENCES

References: 

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46. Patricia Waugh, Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self- Conscious Fiction (New York: Methuen, 1984), p.3.
47. Robert Siegle, The Politics of Reflexivity (London: Hopkins UP, 1986), p.3.
48. Ruth Whittaker, Tristram Shandy, p.75.
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ŞULE OKUROĞLU ÖZÜN
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Tristram Shandy, (London: Macmillan). Federman, Raymond. (1993). Critifiction: Postmodern Essays, (New York: New York Press). Gass, William. (1970). Fiction and Figures of Life, (New York: Knopf).
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