The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell StoriesBloomsbury Publishing, 11.11.2005 - 736 Seiten This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling. But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose. Booker analyses why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years. This seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come. |
Im Buch
Ergebnisse 1-5 von 76
Seite 2
... remains that the two stories share a remarkably similar pattern – one which moreover has formed the basis for countless other stories in the literature of mankind, at many different times and all over the world. So what is the ...
... remains that the two stories share a remarkably similar pattern – one which moreover has formed the basis for countless other stories in the literature of mankind, at many different times and all over the world. So what is the ...
Seite 11
... remains. NO. A rather deeper approach to this whole problem in fact began to emerge more than a century ago when the German ethnologist Adolf Bastian (1826–1905) first put forward the theory that the human mind seems to be so constituted ...
... remains. NO. A rather deeper approach to this whole problem in fact began to emerge more than a century ago when the German ethnologist Adolf Bastian (1826–1905) first put forward the theory that the human mind seems to be so constituted ...
Seite 18
... remains true right across the domain of storytelling . The plot of a story is that which leads its hero or heroine either to a ' catastrophe ' or an ' unknotting ' ; either to frustration or to liberation ; either to death or to a ...
... remains true right across the domain of storytelling . The plot of a story is that which leads its hero or heroine either to a ' catastrophe ' or an ' unknotting ' ; either to frustration or to liberation ; either to death or to a ...
Seite 21
... remains of one of the earliest cities ever built by humankind, biblical Niniveh. Over the decades which followed, many fascinating discoveries were made at Niniveh, but none more so than a mass of clay tablets which came to light in ...
... remains of one of the earliest cities ever built by humankind, biblical Niniveh. Over the decades which followed, many fascinating discoveries were made at Niniveh, but none more so than a mass of clay tablets which came to light in ...
Seite 42
... remains that in fact it must have been there for five million years . Through the now familiar sequence whereby initial dream - like curiosity leads first to frustration , then to a nightmare running out of control , it gradually ...
... remains that in fact it must have been there for five million years . Through the now familiar sequence whereby initial dream - like curiosity leads first to frustration , then to a nightmare running out of control , it gradually ...
Inhalt
1 | |
15 | |
THE COMPLETE HAPPY ENDING | 237 |
MISSING THE MARK | 345 |
WHY WE TELL STORIES | 541 |
The Light and the Shadows on the Wall | 699 |
Authors Personal Note | 703 |
Glossary of Terms | 707 |
Bibliography | 711 |
Index of Stories Cited | 715 |
General Index | 720 |
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Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Aladdin Amleth anima Anna Karenina archetypal arrives beautiful become begins central figure centre century characters Comedy comes complete consciousness Creon Dark Father dark feminine dark figure dark masculine dark power Dark Rival death developed Don Giovanni Dream Stage egocentric egotism emerge eventually everything familiar fantasy film finally girl goal Hamlet happens happy ending heart hero and heroine hero or heroine human imagination inner James Bond Jane Eyre journey killed king kingdom liberated light lives look Macbeth married Moby Dick mother murder mysterious nature Nightmare Stage novel obsession Odysseus Oedipus ordeals Overcoming the Monster pattern play plot Princess Quest Rags to Riches realise recognise represents role seems seen sense shadow storytelling symbolic symbolised Teiresias tells Theseus thing Tragedy transformation true turn type of story ultimately uncon unconscious values Voyage and Return whole wife Wise Old woman young