Prof. dr.

Monica Bottez
Three Great Canadian Novelists: Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, Michael Ondaatje
(A Thematic and Narratological Approach)
an optional course 2011_2012 semester II

1. Principles of fictional organization: causality and chronology

2. Northrop Fryes four forms of prose fiction; realism vs. allegory
3. Story (fable) time vs. narrative; story time vs. narrative time: The Diviners, The Handmaids
Tale, The English Patient
4. Event: ordering, duration, frequency: The Diviners
5. Narration and focalization; types of narrators and focalizers; narrative perspective: The
Penelopiad
6. Narrators report of action, speech and thought; narrative distance: The English Patient
7. Metafictional comments: The Diviners, The Handmaids Tale
8 .Intertextuality: The English Patient; The Penelopiad
9. Character and chracterization: realistic vs. archetypal characters, The Fire-Dwellers, The
Penelopiad
10. Space: metaphoric vs. metonymic description; urban vs rural; real vs imaginary place: The
Fire-Dwellers, The Diviners, The Handmaids Tale
11. The picture of Canadian society as represented in the selected novels
12. National identity and World War II; The British Empire: centre and periphery as represented in
the selected novels

Bibliography
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaids Tale(1988), The Penelopiad (2005)
Laurence, Margaret. The Fire-Dwellers (1969); The Diviners (1974)
Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient (1992)
Bottez, Monica. Analysing Narrative Fiction: Reading Strategies. Bucharest: EUB, 2007

Course requirements and evaluation:

A 5-page essay to be presented in class
Final colloquium on the theoretical concepts with illustrations from 3 novels at the students choice