Research On Labyrinthine Texts In The Perspective Of Narrative Theories

Narratologies studies narrative structures and narrative phenomena,which results in remarkable academic achievements.So far it has turned into a global trend of thought,the sub discipline of fictional theory and the focus of literary theories in China and in the west. Labyrinthine texts are highly complicated texts written by erudite writers,in which the vast range of knowledge has been processed into interesting fictional elements,to realize the infinite linkage of diverse variety of knowledge and infinite narrative possibilities.The dissertation studies the formal attributes of labyrinthine texts represented by Middlemarch and The Name of the Rose from the double perspectives of comparative poetics and narratologies,with the theoretical planning made by George Eliot and Umberto Eco as the basis.The poststructuralist narratologies,especially the theories about the paratextual structure, metanarrative structure and spatial structure,offers a compass to guide us into the labyrinthine texts.The research on the critical history of the past text and the labyrinthine text following it shows that labyrinthine texts have drawn continuous critical attention,and that the critical history has weaved a great diversity of interpretations into a web.As a result,the fresh points and meanings within the labyrinthine text have always been in the middle of discovery.George Eliot's concept of web based on the inherent relationships and Umberto Eco's idea of "the encyclopedia as labyrinth" draw the blueprint for the labyrinthine texts,through which they create two types of labyrinthine texts:the webby narrative text and the circular narrative text. George Eliot studies a person and a phenomenon out of a group of people,and Umberto Eco studies a book and a case out of a series of books.The paratexts surrounding the serialized novel indicate the authorial intention to construct the webby form of narrative following point-line-surface geometrical pattern,the play with the paratexts of the names of the books erects the frame of circular form of narrative.George Eliot and Umberto Eco make known their opinions about narrative web and narrative labyrinth via fictional characters and narrators,to establish the identity of labyrinthine texts and legalize their narrative procedure.The space of their labyrinthine texts is full of lines,linking the whole story,and linking the story with other stories. Studies on the typical labyrinthine texts written by George Eliot and Umberto Eco discover the following features of labyrinthine texts:criticism can never exhaust them;they are planned by the writers;they employ the suitable narrative format to control the vast quantity of information;they underly theoretical discussion about the format;their ultimate purpose is to simulate Internet to achieve boundless linkage of knowledge.