We at CRRAR are pleased to announce the release of Antonio Rossini and Christos Strubakos' new book Repeating Words, Retelling Stories: Repetition, Variation, and Serial Significance in Literature (full details attached)
Book Description
Often in literary texts, repetition does not only serve the purpose of re-enforcing a concept, but rather, the creation of a new meaning. This may be engendered by contrast, gradation, and ‘correction.’ This book explores examples from Homer, where repetition is intertwined with the very fabric of Early Greek Poetry, Virgil, and Ovid. An appendix dedicated to irony shows how even this rhetorical figure can be considered a special case of negative repetition. The book also provides a review of recent literature on neuro-cognitive science, attesting to how repetition is unavoidably a staple feature of any text.
From the Preface
“Rossini and Strubakos step beyond the attention to proximity to explore ways in which the repetition of word or image is distributed within texts, across texts and between texts. This has consequences for how we determine meaning and significance. If we want to interpret a text, it is not enough to let the eye track the route from word to word, sentence to sentence. We must also recall what was said before, and even what was said elsewhere. Authors, Rossini and Strubakos suggest, understand this, and deliberately construct their texts employing strategies of repetition and seriality in order to facilitate both the recovery of meaning and its enhancement. Reading is an exercise in memory, it depends on recognizing traces and “hearing” echoes. What Rossini and Strubakos bring to light, benefitting from the insights of brain research, are specific rhetorical strategies that assist memory, those imperfect processes that require so many aids.” (p. xiv-xvi)
- Dr Christopher Tindale