Extending and revising the scope of a rhetorical approach to unreliability

Recent theoretical approaches seemed to have turned narrative unreliability into a mechanism geared towards personifying texts at all costs: Stylistic devices are discussed in terms of "verbal tics" and heterodiegetic unreliability is excluded by definition. This article offers an overview of recent approaches and advocates an alternative toolbox for coming to terms with the textual construction and effect of both narrative reliability and unreliability. The rhetorical approach aims to highlight the stylistic discursivity of narratorial performance.

ISBN:978-3-11-020630-2

Publication year:2008

Keywords:narratology, unreliability, rhetoric, narrative, literary theory