Title: The demotic voice in contemporary British fiction /
Authors: Scott, Jeremy
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan,
Year: 2009
Subjects: English fiction History and criticism; English fiction History and criticism.; Narration (Rhetoric); Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature.; Sociolinguistics in literature.; LITERARY CRITICISM European English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.; Literary essays.; Literary theory.; Literature.; English fiction; Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature.; Narration (Rhetoric); Sociolinguistics in literature.
Abstract: This book is an assessment of narrative technique in contemporary British fiction, focusing on the experimental use of the demotic voice (regional or national dialects). The book examines the work of James Kelman, Graham Swift, Will Self and Martin Amis, amongst many others, from a practical as well as theoretical perspective.
Contents: Introduction: a story so far? -- Paradigms: a taxonomy of narrative technique -- Antecedents: 'the right to write a voice' -- Graham Swift's Last Orders: the polyphonic novel -- How Late It Was, How Late for James Kelman's 'folk novel' -- Alan Warner: art-speech for the Morvern Paradox -- The demotic, the Mandarin and the proletentious: Martin Amis, Will Self and English art-speech -- Pitfalls and potentialities: Niall Griffiths and Anne Donovan -- Conclusions: the clamouring continues...