The present volume is a contribution to the theory of narrative by scholars from various disciplines, mainly scholars from Comparative Literature but also contributors from Philosophy, Psychology and the languages. The essays focus on central terms and concepts in narrative theory over the last forty years. Established narratological concepts, such as narrative, narrator, story, fiction, character, narrative (un)reliability and point of view, but also relational concepts motivated by the expansion of narratology, such as narrative and non-verbal media, narrative and personal identity and narrative and literary genre, are themes dealt with. In addition to presenting a critical examination of the core concepts of narrative theory, the volume is a demonstration of the vigour of contemporary Nordic narrative theory. The authors work at universities in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and they all belong to the Nordic Network of Narrative Studies.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Sten Wistrand: Time for Departure? The Principle of Minimal Departure - a Critical Examination – Staffan Carlshamre: Is There Ever a Happy Ending? – Leif Søndergaard: Fictional and Factual Discourses in Narratives - and the Grey Zone Between – Mari Hatavara: Contested History, Denied Past. The Narrator’s Failure in Ralf Nordgren’s Det har aldrig hänt (1977) – Per Krogh Hansen: Formalizing the Study of Character: Traits, Profiles, Possibilities – Lars-Åke Skalin: Reading Literary Characters: Is There a Knowing the Dancer from the Dance? – Marina Grishakova: The Voices of Madness: Performativity and Narrative Identity – Christer Johansson: Telling and Showing: A Semiotic Perspective – Göran Rossholm: Narrative as Story Representation – Jeremy Hawthorn: Philip Roth’s Exit Ghost, Joseph Conrad’s The Shadow-Line, and the Ethical Implications of Narrative Occasion – Pekka Tammi: OTHIN RONG WIT HE UBTITLES. Remarks on Unreliability in Fiction and Non-Fiction – Rolf Gaasland: Practical Reasoning Demarcated. Unreliable Narration in Franz Kafka’s «Erstes Leid» – Anniken Greve: Form, Sense and Nonsense. With Examples from Wittgenstein and Kafka – Erik van Ooijen: Notes on the Conceptualization of Style as Embodied Idiolect in French Structuralism – Greger Andersson: Is There a Narrative Method of Text Analysis and Interpretation? – Jakob Lothe: Verbal Narrative and Visual Image: Trains and Railways in W. G. Sebald’s «Paul Bereyter» and Austerlitz – Matti Hyvärinen: «Against Narrativity» Reconsidered – Markku Lehtimäki: Imagist Narrative: The Everyday and the Aesthetic in Hemingway’s Fiction.