The Tale of The Magic Mountain in the Analysis of Paul Ricoeur
Chavdar Dimitrov
Publication: Volume 2 Issue 1
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to explain the role of fictional configuration in a specific philosophical approach. The possibility is opened by the topic of time, common to the later prose of Thomas Mann and the narrative theory of Paul Ricoeur. After an introduction to The Magic Mountain, the problematic of temporality is delineated in terms of tenses and phenomenology of fictive reality (Steven Crowell). The ongoing focus is on the exchange of perspectives on the subject-matter, including Mann’s method of the ‘leitmotiv’ and Ricoeur’s project on ontology of fiction. The inquiry invites contributions from scholars in the fields of tropology (Harry Jansen) and analysis of literature (William Dowling). Most of all the hermeneutically upgraded narratology of Mark Currie offers a critical view on the themes of narrative consciousness and referentiality. As a result of the exposition, the entanglement of the concept of configuration with the problem of tales about time (Ricoeur) is clarified.
Keywords: Narrative temporality, Horizon, Prolepsis, Semantics of action, Threefold mimesis, Metaphorical identification, ‘Tales of time’, Paul Ricoeur, Harry Jansen, William Dowling
Chavdar Dimitrov (chdimitrov@ff.uni-sofia.bg) holds a bachelor’s degree (2006) from the Department of History and Theory of Culture at the Faculty of Philosophy and a master’s degree (2008) in Nordistics from the Department of Scandinavian Studies within the Faculty of Classical and Modern Philologies, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski,” Bulgaria. He is pursuing his doctoral research (2017- ) on “Constitution of Meaning and Phenomenology of Culture.” The theme of his dissertation is “Narrative sense in cultural worlds – comparative analysis between phenomenology of action (David Carr) and hermeneutics of distanciation (Paul Ricoeur).”