What is it about?
Can stones feel attracted to each other? Are trees gendered? Was Medusa in the Greek myth a real person? These are some of the questions that were explored in so-called paradoxographical texts in the ancient Greek world. The questions could range from medicine and science to myth and erotic tales, offering solutions to problems or pragmatic explanations of strange phenomena. In this article I analyse a selection of such ancient paradoxographical stories from the perspective of cognitive narratology, trying to show their relevance as carriers of storyworlds that can be used in various genres that tell love stories.
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Why is it important?
Even the smallest fragment of a story most often contains a storyworld: an imaginary that triggers the reader to engage and create their own vision of the setting and its characters. Such worlds travel beyond genres, across periods and cultures, so that storyworlds from distant times or places may seem strangely familiar to someone who has never experienced them before. The power of discourse to construct realities is simply immense; to understand that is to understand the world.
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This page is a summary of: To Render Unbelievable Tales Believable: The Storyworlds of Paradoxography, October 2024, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004707351_005.
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