123222 SE Literature Seminar / BA Paper / MA British/Irish/New English (2016S)

In multiperspectival narratives, multiple and often discrepant viewpoints are employed in the presentation and evaluation of pivotal events. The intricate technique of multiperspectivity highlights the perceptually, epistemologically or ideologically biased nature of individual perspectives. In this seminar, we will examine different types of multiperspectival discrepancy. Studying various texts taken from different epochs, genres and media, we will look at multiperspectivity's transmedial and diachronic dimensions, ascertaining the close links it bears with phenomena such as unreliability, fallible filtration, focalisation, point of view and the Bakhtinian concepts of polyphony and heteroglossia.