Structure and Moral Vision in the Multi-Valent Modern Novel

FAIN: FB-10598-70

Alan W. Friedman
University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)

Study of "multi-valent novel," an extended work of fiction in which two or more characters (at odds with each other) speak convincingly as if each were the author. Viewpoint becomes the center of moral and aesthetic concerns and replaces the plot as the main focus of the novel. Fellow to concentrate on interrelationship of narrative structure and moral perspective. Considers the multi-valent novel as both an inevitable stage in the novel's evolution and as a uniquely 20th century genre springing from the new theories of relativistic values in such fields as psychology and physics.