Fiction and Social Reality: Literature and Narrative As Sociological Resources

173 Pages·2015·2.422 MB·English

by  Mariano Longo

Fiction and Social Reality
This is an eloquent, erudite and original study on the relationship between
literature and sociology. Drawing on an impressive range of sources, Mariano
Longo invites us to challenge the seeming incompatibilities between rhetoric and
fact, narrative and objectivity and to think afresh about the literary text as a
powerful device of sociological imagination. His achievement is to offer us an
illuminating account of sociology as a creative art, as a poetics of science.
lilie chouliaraki, london School of economics and Political Science, UK
classical and contemporary
Social theory
Series editor: Stjepan G. Mestrovic, texas a&M University, USa
classical and contemporary Social theory publishes rigorous scholarly work that
re-discovers the relevance of social theory for contemporary times, demonstrating
the enduring importance of theory for modern social issues. the series covers
social theory in a broad sense, inviting contributions on both ‘classical’ and
modern theory, thus encompassing sociology, without being confined to a single
discipline. as such, work from across the social sciences is welcome, provided
that volumes address the social context of particular issues, subjects, or figures
and offer new understandings of social reality and the contribution of a theorist or
school to our understanding of it. The series considers significant new appraisals
of established thinkers or schools, comparative works or contributions that discuss
a particular social issue or phenomenon in relation to the work of specific theorists
or theoretical approaches. contributions are welcome that assess broad strands
of thought within certain schools or across the work of a number of thinkers, but
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Fiction and Social Reality
literature and narrative as Sociological Resources
MaRiano lonGo
University of Salento, Italy
© Mariano longo 2015
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Mariano longo has asserted his right under the copyright, designs and Patents act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.
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Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry ling limited,
at the dorset Press, dorchester, dt1 1Hd
To Lucia and Michele
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Contents
Introduction 1
1 Features and Structure of Narratives 11
2 The Cognitive Value of Fictional Narratives 27
3 Narratives and Sociology: At the Roots of a Forgotten Tradition 53
4 Writing Sociology: Social Sciences as Texts 85
5 When Sociologists Use Literary Sources 101
6 On the Sociological Use of Narratives 125
Bibliography 151
Index 161
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Introduction
As laymen, at least intuitively, we know that tales, stories, and narratives are
relevant. Indeed, our perception of the world, our knowledge of other people, our
cultural perspectives (including behavioural standards, social norms and values)
are both the output of our lived experience, and the result of experiences we
share with other fellow people, where narratives play a relevant role as a mode
of communication. This book concerns the sociological relevance of narratives,
of literary narratives in particular. When I started thinking of the subject of this
monograph, I turned to my own recollections and memories. I tried to recall the
stories which were part of my biographical background. Some traditional fables
came to my mind, which my grandmother used to tell me in my southern Italian
dialect, as well as some family stories, which moulded my identity during my
childhood. As for literary narratives, I was able to recall a remarkable number of
plots, characters, milieux, and atmospheres, almost as vividly as the oral stories of
my childhood. They were real to me, just like the tales of my early life, although
they had been experienced outside the lively context of social interaction. The
literary narratives I have read are part of my personal experience, as much as
the stories I heard in my family and social context. These brief autobiographical
remarks are relevant to me for at least two reasons. The first is connected to the
fact that the stories I have heard and read (as well as the stories that I still hear and
read), contributed to defining the man I am, including my professional role as a
professor of sociology and a social scientist: they are relevant components of the
models of thought I adopt to approach reality, the concepts I use to categorize social
facts and events, the typification upon which I construct my explication of the
social; secondly, they justify, from a subjective and biographical perspective, my
interest in the use of narratives (including literary ones) as a source for sociology.
The theme of narratives is ambitious, yet I will treat it from a consciously
partial perspective. My partiality is unavoidable since the topic has a great variety
of thematic implications, as narratives may be considered one of the most relevant
forms of human communication (Fisher, 1987). Indeed, narratives are everywhere
(Barthes, 1975): they may be oral or written, fictional or true; they cover a wide
range of genres (jokes, police-reports, newspaper articles, metropolitan legends,
novels – some of which are distinguishable as sub-genres: romance, detective
stories, historical novels etc.); they tend to colonize all available communicative
media (print, old as well as new media) (Ryan and Thon, 2014). Moreover, the
theme is relevant as an object of scientific scrutiny in a wide range of related
disciplinary fields (sociology, anthropology, psychology, literary criticism,
semiotics, history, to mention just a few) and a specialized interest in narration