Realistic Stories Research Articles

Realism, relativism, and constructivism

This paper gives a critical evaluation of the philosophical presuppositions and implications of two current schools in the sociology of knowledge: the Strong Programme of Bloor and Barnes; and the Constructivism of Latour and Knorr-Cetina. Bloor's arguments for his externalist symmetry thesis (i.e., scientific beliefs must always be explained by social factors) are found to be incoherent or inconclusive. At best, they suggest a Weak Programme of the sociology of science: when theoretical preferences in a scientific community, SC, are first internally explained by appealing to the evidence, e, and the standards or values, V, accepted in SC, then a sociologist may sometimes step in to explain why e and V were accepted in SC. Latour's story about the ‘social construction’ of facts in scientific laboratories is found to be misleading or incredible. The idea that scientific reality is an artifact turns out to have some interesting affinities with classical pragmatism, instrumentalism, phenomenology, and internal realism. However, the constructivist account of theoretical entities in terms of negotiation and social consensus is less plausible than the alternative realist story which explains consensus by the preexistence of mind-independent real entities. The author concludes that critical scientific realism, developed with the concept of truthlikeness, is compatible with the thesis that scientific beliefs or knowledge claims may be relative to various types of cognitive and practical interests. However, the realist denies, with good reasons, the stronger type of relativism which takes reality and truth to be relative to persons, groups, or social interests.

Myths and the Fantastic

onslaught of Enlightenment thought has been filled with stories, and the which have so far been the closest to myths are fantastic stories: this is the basic proposition which I want to argue and discuss. Realistic stories, too, have been produced in an attempt to reactivate some mythic view of the world, as in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain or Joyce's Ulysses, but the closest to being mythic are those of Frankenstein, Dracula, Captain Nemo, Tarzan, and the like. This is curious, since myths are stories for an original audience,' whereas fantastic are palpably untrue. I am proposing, therefore, to compare two different kinds of stories, one true, another untrue, and do it without any intention to bridge the gap in the name of literature or art. The distinction between true and untrue implies classification. The further distinctions which I will introduce here

Nigerian Folktales and Children' S Stories By Chinuaachebe

Chinua Achebe pioneered not only the modem African novel in standard English but also the Afrocentric children's story, intended as a substitute for the Eurocentric import that has for decades acculturated African children. Achebe (1977; 1976; 1966) has so far published three children's books and co-authored a fourth with John Iroaganachi (1973). Properly speaking, the first book, Chike and the River, is not a story but a novella, being broader than a story and less than a novel in thematic scope, character development, and the selection and development of the details constituting an episode. Its audience is children in the last year of primary school, 10-13 years old, who already have a fairly good understanding of the English language. While Chike and the River is a realistic story, the other three books are Ibo folktales dealing with fantasy, folklore motifs, stock characters, stock situations, and settings that are vague and remote. The folktales are written for children of varying ages. While The Drum and How the Leopard Got His Claws are addressed to children between 6 and 10 years old, The Flute is intended for children 4 to 6 years old.

La construction de l’indécidable dans une nouvelle de Leon Rooke

The essay examines the ways in which the construction of Leon Rooke’s stories prevents the reader from reading them referentially. Analyzing «The Birth Control King of the Upper Uolta», it demonstrates the various procedures of «defamiliarization» employed by Rooke : the use of metalogisms, the handling of time, the lability of the character’s identity, the resort to clichés and the ensuing parodie and comic function of speech. Ultimately disorientation, however, is the only prerequisite for re-orientation. Rooke withdraws from the reader the comfortable certainties of the realistic story, only to open to him another world in which dreams and the irrational play a much larger role.

Newbery and Caldecott Medal and Honor Books: An Annotated Bibliography (review)

Reviewed by: Newbery and Caldecott Medal and Honor Books: An Annotated Bibliography Anita C. Wilson Peterson, Linda Kauffman and Marilyn Leathers Solt . Newbery and Caldecott Medal and Honor Books: An Annotated Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. 427 pages, indexed and illustrated. In their preface to this annotated bibliography of Newbery and Caldecott books, the authors state their purposes for having created what they term a "reference handbook": to provide concise summaries of all Newbery and Caldecott Medal and Honor books, to provide critical commentary regarding texts of Newbery books and illustrations of Caldecotts, to revive interest in some outstanding early works which have gone out of print, and to comment upon trends evident in Newbery and Caldecott books. The authors' analysis of major trends among these books is particularly useful. Works are divided into six major categories: folk literature, fantasy, biography, books of information, historical fiction, and fiction, which is subdivided into fiction set in other countries, realistic animal stories, regional fiction, and stories about minorities, and other realistic fiction with an American setting. Since excerpts from the authors' analysis of characteristics and trends in these books appeared recently in the Quarterly's special section on Newbery and Caldecott books, I will be brief here. Regarding Newbery books, Peterson and Solt note that although not much folk literature is represented, fantasy incorporating secondary worlds and social commentary has become prominent in the last two decades. Works of historical fiction have garnered more Newbery awards than any other category, but two-thirds of those honored before 1951 are now out of print. Esther Forbes' Johnny Tremain (1943), with its portrayal of a well-rounded and dynamic protagonist, is seen as a turning point in the writing of historical fiction for chidren, while the category overall has moved from romanticized to realistic approaches and shows increasing awareness of ethnic concerns and of varying interpretations of historical events. Works of nonfiction are second in number to historical fiction, and biographies frequently employ fictional reporting of characters' conversations or thoughts. While realistic animal stories have remained consistently popular, fictional tales of life in other countries have decreased in the past twenty years; the authors hypothesize that television and more extensive traveling have diminished the former "exotic" appeal of such books. Regional and minority fiction, in contrast, developed dramatically during the 1960's and 1970's, as did general realistic fiction set in the United States. Reflecting social trends, these books moved from a focus upon rural and small town life to greater use of urban and suburban settings. While earlier books often depicted sheltered childhood environments, recent works portray a more complex and realistic perspective, dealing with previously taboo topics and focusing upon contemporary concerns about identity and personal relationships. In their analysis of trends evident in the Caldecott books, Peterson and Solt note an overall development from illustrated books to genuine picture books, distinguished by an organic and integral relationship between text and pictures. Thomas Handforth's Mei Lei (1938) and Virginia Lee Burton's The Little House (1942) are seen as milestones in this respect. Among the Caldecott books as a group, no realistic animal stories have appeared since Lynd Ward's The Biggest Bear (1952), while realistic stories of everyday life have remained consistently popular, as have folk tales and other forms of tradtional literature. Earlier picture books dealing with regional and minority groups tended to portray such groups as self-contained units; more recent works tend to depict minorities in the context of broader social issues and values. Among the most recent Caldecotts, wordless picture books such as Molly Bang's The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher (1980), and Donald Crews' Truck (1980), are cited as a trend which seems likely to continue and which offers a new interpretation of picture books as an art form. Without question, this annotated bibliography provides clear, concise, and valuable information, arranged in a convenient and logical manner, about Newbery and Caldecott books. It appears somewhat less strong in the area of critical commentary upon specific works, but this was not the authors' primary purpose, and reasonable limitations of scope would prohibit extensive critical analysis of individual books. Nevertheless, the authors offer...

Dissertations of Note

Dissertations of Note Rachel Fordyce (bio) Asker, David Barry Desmond. "The Modern Bestiary: Animal Fiction from Hardy to Orwell." Ph.D. diss. The University of British Columbia, 1978. 271 pp. DAI 39:7338A. In his analysis of a wide variety of animal fiction written between 1870 and 1945, Asker explores the shifting moral, political, and social bases for using animals as fictional characters. The dissertation is noteworthy not because it is concerned primarily with animals in children's literature, but because of the critical approach to animal characters in realistic, figurative, and fantasy literature. Asker concludes that "the modern Bestiarists represent a wide variety of fictional techniques and an equally extensive range of thematic interest." This conclusion is substantiated in the dissertation. Cunningham, Michael Henry. "The Triumph of Fantasy: Childhood and Children's Literature in Victorian England." Ph.D. diss. New School for Social Research, 1978. 326 pp. DAI 39:4522-23. Cunningham's dissertation is written from the perspective of a social scientist and is both a historical survey of ideas about childhood and children's literature in Victorian literature and a projection of issues, unresolved in the nineteenth century, that he feels should be addressed in the twentieth century. He is particularly concerned about the dichotomy which appears to exist between the way a child views a children's book and the way it is perceived by an adult. He concludes that "at the very least we need to be reminded again and again that our taken-for-granted notions, notably our notions about childhood and child-rearing, may not be assumed to possess universal and external validity." Elsen, Mary Mertz. "The Child-Figure in Hawthorne's Fiction." Ph.D. diss. University of Maryland, 1978. 188 pp. DAI 39:4947A. This dissertation is a psychological and sociological study as much as a literary analysis of Hawthorne's treatment of childhood and of his deepening awareness of the complexity of the child, although Elsen is primarily concerned with the metaphoric images of children in Hawthorne's fiction. These she calls "Child-figures" and views as vehicles by which Hawthorne "can express the best and worst of human nature." Golden, Joanne Marie. "A Schema for Analyzing Responses to Literature Applied to the Responses of Fifth and Eighth Graders to Realistic and Fantasy Short Stories." Ph.D. diss. Ohio State University, 1978. 195 pp. DAI 39:5996A. Somewhat predictably Golden concludes that fifth graders responded more perceptively to realistic stories than to fantasy tales; eighth graders were more receptive to fantasy. See also Catherine Elizabeth Studier's "A Comparison of the Responses of Fifth Grade Students to Modern Fantasy and Realistic Fiction." Ed.D. diss. University of Georgia, 1978. 135 pp. DAI 39:7201-02A. Hughes, Robert James. "Childishness in the Age of Reason." Ph.D. diss. University of New Hampshire, 1978. 173 pp. DAI 39:6775-76. [End Page 233] Hughes's work is a way of getting at Restoration and eighteenth-century attitudes toward children and childhood through the ideas of fictional writers and educators. Given the theses that children are creatures of unrestrained passion, that they must be protected from themselves, that lack of self-control may be a virtue or a vice (depending on the interpreter), and that imagination and spontaneity are inexorably linked to childlikeness, Hughes explores the treatment of childlike characters in Wycherley, Fielding, Sterne, Cleland, and Beckford. Johnson, Denis Gerard. "'Nature's' Nurture: Emerson and the Age of the Child." Ph.D. diss. Rutgers University, 1978. 189 pp. DAI 39:4447. Johnson is not concerned with rehashing historical studies of "the new image of the child in the nineteenth century." He is most concerned with Emerson's perception of childhood, based on his own childhood and exhibited in such essays as "The American Scholar," "Education," "Domestic Life," and "Historic Notes, Life and Letters in New England." Johnson concludes that Emerson should be viewed "as an innovator not only of a new philosophy called Transcendentalism, but of a new image of the child laying a foundation for our child-centered culture." See also Thomas Leonard Jenkins's "Evolution of the Youth Figure in the Poetry of Hugo von Hofmannsthal." Ph.D. diss. University of Colorado...

Romance-A Congenial Form: Mel'nikov-Pecherskii's Grandma's Yarns and Olden Times

In the history of Russian criticism the works of P. I. Mel'nikovPecherskii have been repeatedly misinterpreted. A nonrealist flourishing during the heyday of Russian realism, Mel'nikov, who wrote under the pseudonym Andrei Pecherskii, is either derided for his literary nonconformism or regarded as a realist manque.1 This is well illustrated by the treatment which has been accorded the novellas Grandma's Yarns (Babushkiny rosskazni, 1858) and Olden Times (Starye gody, 1857), two of Mel'nikov's most distinctive works. Both are supposedly eyewitness accounts of eighteenthcentury Russian life. In the first, an old woman of high society recalls two extraordinary personages, and in the second, we learn of a prince's untrammeled way of life through an old groom's memories. During the more than one hundred years since their publication, critics and scholars, both those favorably and unfavorably disposed toward Mel'nikov, have tried unsuccessfully to place the novellas in the broad tradition of nineteenth-century realism.2 Their mode, however, is romantic rather than realistic. They are variants of romance, not realistic stories. In the absence of appropriate Russian criticism, it is helpful to turn to Western criticism devoted to the phenomenon of romance-in particular, nineteenth-century ro-

The Metrical Tale in XVIII-Century England

The poets of the early nineteenth century are thought of primarily as lyrists; and yet, in the case of all the leading figures, especially the two most popular, Scott and Byron, the bulk of their work is narrative, and for the most part metrical tales. These narratives vary widely in subject-matter and atmosphere: sometimes, as in Crabbe, the purpose is simply to tell a realistic story; sometimes as in Wordsworth, to point a moral or adorn a bit of autobiography; sometimes, as in Coleridge and Byron, to give the reader a new and exotic shudder; or, as in Scott and Keats, to delight with the mysterious and forgotton past; or, as in Shelley, to inculcate a social doctrine. At first sight, this prevalence of narrative seems to be an utter departure from the preceding hundred years, in which satire and didacticism are supposed to have extinguished the versified tale; but a closer examination, especially of minor writers, shows that the eighteenth century had an unbroken tradition of such writings. The existence of this tradition has generally escaped attention, partly because the works of such minor poets are hard to find, and partly because the genre was of rather dubious repute, being akin to the “ballad” of the time, and was hardly included in the literary “kinds” generally accepted by critics and theorists.

A reference book in natural science, Realistic stories, A functional approach to educational psychology, Genuine poetry for children

A reference book in natural science, Realistic stories, A functional approach to educational psychology, Genuine poetry for children

The Court and the Constitution

Americans do not want the Supreme Court to be just another political institution. This is apparent in the lukewarm response to even modest proposals to change the structure of the Court, such as limiting the terms of its justices or changing its size. The partisan overlay of this reaction is obvious, but the purpose of this Essay is to highlight an additional barrier to change: the dominance of originalist rhetoric in American constitutional discourse. The rhetoric of originalism has successfully tapped into many Americans’ deeply held expectations about the role of the Court and the Constitution as a unique and law-based actor. In doing so, it has crowded out alternative and more realistic stories of the value the Supreme Court actually adds to our system of self-government, making it difficult for proposals to change the Court to get traction in the public imagination. But the Constitution itself positions the Court within our system of checks and balances, not outside it. Reminding Americans of the ways the Constitution balances judicial independence and judicial accountability to constrain judicial overreach enables Supreme Court-reform advocates to reclaim the narrative—and, perhaps, the initiative—in the ongoing American debate about the Court and Constitution’s role in our system of self-government.