B. Richardson, A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-First Century. Theorizing Unruly Narratives - Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

French Literature Reviews - 2026

B. Richardson, A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-First Century. Theorizing Unruly Narratives
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

A review of this book can be read in Acta Fabula (vol. 21, no. 2, February 2021) as part of a critical dossier accompanying the table of contents of the 25th issue of the journal Fabula-LhT, both published under the same heading: "Debating Fictions":

"Narrative Progression and Antimimetic Works: Outline of a Promising Research Field", by Mélanie Grenier.

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Brian Richardson

A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-First Century. Theorizing Unruly Narratives

Ohio State University Press

ISBN 978-0-8142-1412-1

218 p.

$70.00

OVERVIEW

“Brian Richardson’s ever-expanding knowledge of world historical literature—ancient and contemporary, arcane and canonical—allows him, seemingly without effort, to put things in a fresh light—a rare pleasure in academic prose.” —H. Porter Abbott

Story, in the broadest sense of the term, is arguably the single most important aspect of narrative. However, with the proliferation of antimimetic writing, traditional narrative theory has proven inadequate for conceptualizing and theorizing a vast body of innovative narratives. In A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-First Century: Theorizing Unruly Narratives, Brian Richardson proposes a comprehensive new model for understanding story and plot, encompassing beginnings, endings, temporality, and unusual narrative progressions. While focusing primarily on late modernist, postmodern, and contemporary narratives, the study also examines numerous earlier works, ranging from Aristophanes and Shakespeare through James Joyce and Virginia Woolf to Salman Rushdie and Angela Carter.

By exploring fundamental questions regarding narrative, Richardson delivers a detailed, nuanced, and comprehensive theory that incorporates neglected categories of storytelling while significantly enhancing our approach to traditional areas of analysis. Ultimately, this book promises to transform and expand the study of story and plot.

Brian Richardson

Brian Richardson is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the author of Unnatural Narrative: Theory, History, and Practice (OSU Press, 2015).

CONTENTS

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Mimetic and Antimimetic Narrative Dynamics
Chapter 1: Narrative, the Nonnarrative, and the Unnarratable
Chapter 2: Modeling Narrative Beginnings
Chapter 3: Narrative Middles I: Plot, Probability, and Tellability
Chapter 4: Narrative Middles II: Non Plot-Based Narrative Progressions
Chapter 5: The Varieties of Narrative Time
Chapter 6: Adventures of the Book: Fabricating Fabula and Syuzhet
Chapter 7: Narrative Endings: Fixed, Unfixed, Illusory, and Unnatural
Conclusion: Narrative Theory and the Poetics of Story and Plot

Works Cited
Index

The study of narrative progression has long occupied scholars of comparative literature and narratology, particularly as contemporary and postmodern texts continue to challenge conventional models of mimesis and plot. A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-First Century: Theorizing Unruly Narratives engages with these evolving critical frameworks by examining how literature from classical antiquity to the present day structures beginnings, endings, and temporality. Brian Richardson proposes a comprehensive new model for understanding story and plot, focusing primarily on late modernist, postmodern, and contemporary narratives while also drawing upon earlier works ranging from Aristophanes and Shakespeare to James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

The volume explores fundamental questions regarding narrative dynamics, incorporating neglected categories of storytelling and examining narrative middles, non-plot-based progressions, and the varieties of narrative time. By addressing antimimetic writing and the limits of traditional narrative theory, the book details a comprehensive approach that encompasses unusual narrative progressions and unconventional beginnings and endings. Readers interested in contemporary narratology and the theoretical study of story and plot may find it relevant.