Narrative Literature In The History Of The Triple Jump

Homer's epic, Tom Jones and Ulysses are representatives of the three important stages in the history of western literature. During the long evolution of style, each follower destroyed its predecessor's narrative distance in terms of narrative time, narrative angle and narrative model. Characters had been lowering in aesthetics step by step from Homer's to Tom Jones till Ulysses by means of gradual familiarization and carnivalization. That reduced the distance between loftiness and meanness as well as that of epic and novel. The dominant ideas of aesthetics were impacted also. Based on destroying the narrative distance and aesthetic distance of epics, Tom Jones overturned the syllable and rhyme of epics , belittled refined phraseology, while Ulysses further belittled words and carnivalized language. Meanwhile, by way of parodying various styles in history Ulysses strode across a new style which nobody else could imitate and surpass till now. This thesis intends to discuss the vertical development from narrative skills, characters carnival and strides in style, mainly with the reference of Mikhai 1 Bakhtine's historical culture poetics and carnival theory, and G6 rade Genette's narrative theory as well.