Towards a Stylistic Approach to Character in Literature

This book investigates one of the most important but ‘problematic’ categories of narrative fiction, literary characters. In particular, it focuses on issues related to their ontological status and curriculum vitae during the last 100 years, and reflects upon the theoretical frameworks exploited for their analysis. Starting from an overview of the so-called ‘literary approaches’, the study aims to shed light on the growing importance of stylistic approaches, that is to say of models which pay crucial attention to how language is used both by the characters and by the narrators. Some of the most significant theoretical frameworks elaborated during the last thirty years have been selected and introduced, from Michael Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics to Elena Semino’s investigations of mind style through the study of the metaphors used by the characters. A considerable amount of room has been devoted to explanations and exemplifications.