The Impact of Multiple Voice on Reader Hestitation: The Case of Vladimir Odoevskii's The Sylph

Author: Whitehead C.

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 98, Number 2, 1 April 2003 , pp. 397-415(19)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

First published in The Contemporary in 1837, Odoevskii's The Sylph has not to date received the critical attention it merits. This article offers an examination of the story in the light of the theory of the fantastic proposed by Tzvetan Todorov. For Todorov, the defining feature of the fantastic is reader hesitation regarding the nature of events in the story world. The narrative and discourse techniques employed in The Sylph are investigated to see how far the story may be considered to belong to this genre. Of particular interest to the discussion of hesitation is Odoevskii's exploitation of multiple narrative voices thanks to the mixed format of the story. This essay updates Todorov's structuralist approach to the fantastic with contemporary narratological theory in order to account for the reader's experience of hesitation.

Keywords: Odoevskii's The Sylph; theory of the fantastic; Tzvetan Todorov; reader hesitation; multiple narrative voices; narratological theory

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: University of Bristol

Publication date: 2003-04-01

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The Modern Language Review, the flagship journal of the Association, is available to all individual members as part of their subscription. MLR is one of the oldest journals in its field, maintaining an unbroken publication record since its foundation in 1905, and publishing more than 3,000 articles and 20,000 book reviews.

Each volume consists of four issues, published in January, April, July and October of each year. Its 1000+ annual pages are divided roughly equally between articles, predominantly on medieval and modern literature in the languages of Europe, and over 500 reviews of books in these areas. All contributions are in English, and each section is edited by a noted scholar in the field, under the overall supervision of the General Editor. Articles are chosen not only for their scholarly worth and originality but also, as far as possible, for their potential interest to a wider readership in other disciplines.

The Impact of Multiple Voice on Reader Hestitation: The Case of Vladimir Odoevskii's The Sylph

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