The Techniques and Effects of Irony in Prose Fiction

FAIN: FT-10808-70

Arnold Krupat
Sarah Lawrence College (Bronxville, NY 10708-5999)

Study of ironic fiction (such as works of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, Nathaniel West's A Cool Million, the works of Beckett, Iris Murdoch, and William Burroughs). While traditional novels have sought to stabilize a world, to catch a society and an age in prose, ironic fiction has sought to undermine the world it encounters, to subvert generally accepted notions of reality in the interest of truth which is thought of as some broader or more real reality. Fellow teaches a course at Sarah Lawrence on "Irony in Prose Fiction."