What is experimental literature? How has experimentation affected the course of literary history, and how is it shaping literary expression today? Literary experiment has always been diverse and challenging, but never more so than in our age of digital media and social networking, when the very category of the literary is coming under intense pressure. How will literature reconfigure itself in the future?

The Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature maps this expansive and multifaceted field, with essays on:

• the history of literary experiment from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present
• the impact of new media on literature, including multimodal literature, digital fiction and code poetry
• the development of experimental genres from graphic narratives and found poetry through to gaming and interactive fiction
• experimental movements from Futurism and Surrealism to Postmodernism, Avant-Pop and Flarf.

Shedding new light on often critically neglected terrain, the contributors introduce this vibrant area, define its current state, and offer exciting new perspectives on its future.

This volume is the ideal introduction for those approaching the study of experimental literature for the first time or looking to further their knowledge.

Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, Depth brings together many of the most influential voices in the scholarly and critical debate about post-postmodernism and twenty-first century aesthetics, arts and culture. By relating cutting-edge analyses of contemporary literature, the visual arts and film and television to recent social, technological and economic developments, the volume provides both a map and an itinerary of today's metamodern cultural landscape. As its organising principle, the book takes Fredric Jameson's canonical arguments about the waning of historicity, affect and depth in the postmodern culture of western capitalist societies in the twentieth century, and re-evaluates and reconceptualises these notions in a twenty-first century context. In doing so, it shows that the contemporary moment should be regarded as a transitional period from the postmodern and into the metamodern cultural moment.

Since the turn of the millennium, there has seen an increase in the inclusion of typography, graphics and illustration in fiction. This book engages with visual and multimodal devices in twenty-first century literature, exploring canonical authors like Mark Z. Danielewski and Jonathan Safran Foer alongside experimental fringe writers such as Steve Tomasula, to uncover an embodied textual aesthetics in the information age. Bringing together multimodality and cognition in an innovative study of how readers engage with challenging literature, this book makes a significant contribution to the debates surrounding multimodal design and multimodal reading. Drawing on cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, semiotics, visual perception, visual communication, and multimodal analysis, Gibbons provides a sophisticated set of critical tools for analysing the cognitive impact of multimodal literature.

This edited collection brings together an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars who together offer cutting-edge insights into the complex roles, functions, and effects of pronouns in literary texts. The book engages with a range of text-types, including poetry, drama, and prose from different periods and regions, in English and in translation. Beginning with analyses of the first-person pronoun, it moves onto studies of the subject dynamics of first- and second-person, before considering plural modes of narration and how pronoun use can help to disperse narrative perspective. The volume then debates the functional constraints of pronouns in fictional contexts and finally reflects upon the theoretical advancements presented in the collection. This innovative volume will appeal to students and scholars of linguistics, stylistics and cognitive poetics, narratology, theoretical and applied linguistics, psychology and literary criticism.

Since the turn of the millennium, there has seen an increase in the inclusion of typography, graphics and illustration in fiction. This book engages with visual and multimodal devices in twenty-first century literature, exploring canonical authors like Mark Z. Danielewski and Jonathan Safran Foer alongside experimental fringe writers such as Steve Tomasula, to uncover an embodied textual aesthetics in the information age. Bringing together multimodality and cognition in an innovative study of how readers engage with challenging literature, this book makes a significant contribution to the debates surrounding multimodal design and multimodal reading. Drawing on cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, semiotics, visual perception, visual communication, and multimodal analysis, Gibbons provides a sophisticated set of critical tools for analysing the cognitive impact of multimodal literature.

Now available in paperback, this is the first book-length study of Mark Z. Danielewski, an American novelist who is rapidly establishing himself as a leading figure in the landscape of contemporary literature. It places his three major works to date, House of Leaves, The Fifty Year Sword and Only Revolutions, in their literary-historical context, and considers them alongside the media platforms which they have inspired, including internet forums and popular music. Leading critics examine Danielewski's pioneering novels, generating new insights into their innovative interplay of word and image. A variety of critical perspectives are adopted, from the close analysis of the poetic form of Only Revolutions to the consideration of the effects of his work on the reader. Danielewski's use of epic tropes is explored, as too is the relationship of his work to that of his most influential predecessors (including James Joyce) and his most relevant contemporaries (including David Foster Wallace). His radical reappraisal of the dynamic possibilities that the printed book has to offer in this digital age is a common theme. The book will be of significant interest to all scholars working on Danielewski, as well as to students of the American novel, contemporary literature, and twenty-first century media culture. It will also appeal to Danielewski's many fans, and all those, who like the contributors to this volume, have been inspired by his work. -- .

What is experimental literature? How has experimentation affected the course of literary history, and how is it shaping literary expression today? Literary experiment has always been diverse and challenging, but never more so than in our age of digital media and social networking, when the very category of the literary is coming under intense pressure. How will literature reconfigure itself in the future?

The Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature maps this expansive and multifaceted field, with essays on:

• the history of literary experiment from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present
• the impact of new media on literature, including multimodal literature, digital fiction and code poetry
• the development of experimental genres from graphic narratives and found poetry through to gaming and interactive fiction
• experimental movements from Futurism and Surrealism to Postmodernism, Avant-Pop and Flarf.

Shedding new light on often critically neglected terrain, the contributors introduce this vibrant area, define its current state, and offer exciting new perspectives on its future.

This volume is the ideal introduction for those approaching the study of experimental literature for the first time or looking to further their knowledge.

Provides a clear introduction to the key terms and frameworks in cognitive poetics and stylisticsHow do texts create meaning? How do we arrive at our textual interpretations? Why do we become 'lost in a book' or feel deep emotion in response to a literary character? Through close attention to the way texts are written and the language they use, as well as what we know about the human mind, 'Contemporary Stylistics' provides readers with the tools to begin answering these questions. In doing so, it introduces the theoretical principles and practical frameworks of stylistics and cognitive poetics, supplying the practical skills to analyse your own responses to literary texts. Including innovative activities for students and with case studies of work by writers like Dylan Thomas, EL James and Kazuo Ishiguro, this is a detailed analysis of contemporary stylistics that offers both historical contextualization of the discipline and points towards its possible future direction.Key Features:Introduces the key terms for each contemporary stylistic frameworkOutlines the foundations of the discipline and addresses cutting-edge developments such as reader response research, corpus methods, multimodality and reader emotion Contains practical analyses, innovative exercises for students, and further reading suggestions in each chapterAddresses the recent attention to multimodal and digital literature and research into empiricism and emotionEach topic is explored through original analyses of a wide range of texts, including poetry, prose, dialogue, song lyrics, political discourse, and linguistic transcriptsThere are stylistic and cognitive poetic analyses through the book. The key case studies include:'The Canal' Lee Rourke (2010)'Zang Tumb Tumb' by Marinetti (1914)'River in Spate' by Louis MacNeice'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas (1954)'Space Sonnet & Polyfilla' by Edwin Morgan (1977)'In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden' by Matthea Harvey (2000)'House of Cards''What is the What' by Dave Eggers (2006)'Ash Wednesday' by Ethan Hawke (2002)'Fresh Meat''Fifty Shades of Grey' by E. L. James (2012)'Received Pronunciation' by Sally Goldsmith (2012)'The house is not the same since you left' by Henry Normal (1993)'The Lives of Others' by Neel Mukherjee (2014)'My Name is Lucy Barton' by Elizabeth Stroud (2016)'How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia' by Mohsin Hamid (2013)'The Unconsoled' by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)'The One Ronnie''The Girl on the Train' by Paula Hawkins (2015)'I Am The Song' by Charles Causley'Hypothetical' by Maria Taylor'This is the Poem in which I Have Not Left You' by Julia Copus (2012)'13, rue Therese' by Elena Mauli Shapiro (2011)'Illuminae' by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (2015)'Karen' by Blast Theory (2015)'Blood Story' by Melvin Burgess

The legendary lost novel in which fourteen-year-old Preston Wildey-King must choose between his all-consuming passion for Pepsi Cola and his love for schoolmate Peggy.

"He walked into the turbulent super market. There were people everywhere. His eyes swept over the shelves and stabilised on a large stack of Pepsi-colas. He could almost experience the cool fizzy liquid descending his parched throat."

Written by June-Alison Gibbons when she was only 16, The Pepsi Cola Addict is considered one of the great works of twentieth-century outsider literature. More than just a literary curiosity, however, this tale of a teenager whose passion for a well-known cola drink threatens to ruin his life is the uniquely vivid expression of a young woman trying to make sense of the confusing, often brutal world she in which found herself.

Published in 1982 by a vanity press who took £800 from its young author and gave her only a single book in return, it's thought that fewer than ten original copies still exist in the world.

Shortly after its publication, June-Alison and her sister Jennifer would become infamous as "The Silent Twins" and find themselves cruelly incarcerated for over a decade in Broadmoor Hospital. This author-approved edition makes June-Alison Gibbon's remarkable vision widely available for the first time.

Provides a clear introduction to the key terms and frameworks in cognitive poetics and stylisticsHow do texts create meaning? How do we arrive at our textual interpretations? Why do we become 'lost in a book' or feel deep emotion in response to a literary character? Through close attention to the way texts are written and the language they use, as well as what we know about the human mind, 'Contemporary Stylistics' provides readers with the tools to begin answering these questions. In doing so, it introduces the theoretical principles and practical frameworks of stylistics and cognitive poetics, supplying the practical skills to analyse your own responses to literary texts. Including innovative activities for students and with case studies of work by writers like Dylan Thomas, EL James and Kazuo Ishiguro, this is a detailed analysis of contemporary stylistics that offers both historical contextualization of the discipline and points towards its possible future direction.Key Features:Introduces the key terms for each contemporary stylistic frameworkOutlines the foundations of the discipline and addresses cutting-edge developments such as reader response research, corpus methods, multimodality and reader emotion Contains practical analyses, innovative exercises for students, and further reading suggestions in each chapterAddresses the recent attention to multimodal and digital literature and research into empiricism and emotionEach topic is explored through original analyses of a wide range of texts, including poetry, prose, dialogue, song lyrics, political discourse, and linguistic transcriptsThere are stylistic and cognitive poetic analyses through the book. The key case studies include:'The Canal' Lee Rourke (2010)'Zang Tumb Tumb' by Marinetti (1914)'River in Spate' by Louis MacNeice'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas (1954)'Space Sonnet & Polyfilla' by Edwin Morgan (1977)'In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden' by Matthea Harvey (2000)'House of Cards''What is the What' by Dave Eggers (2006)'Ash Wednesday' by Ethan Hawke (2002)'Fresh Meat''Fifty Shades of Grey' by E. L. James (2012)'Received Pronunciation' by Sally Goldsmith (2012)'The house is not the same since you left' by Henry Normal (1993)'The Lives of Others' by Neel Mukherjee (2014)'My Name is Lucy Barton' by Elizabeth Stroud (2016)'How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia' by Mohsin Hamid (2013)'The Unconsoled' by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)'The One Ronnie''The Girl on the Train' by Paula Hawkins (2015)'I Am The Song' by Charles Causley'Hypothetical' by Maria Taylor'This is the Poem in which I Have Not Left You' by Julia Copus (2012)'13, rue Therese' by Elena Mauli Shapiro (2011)'Illuminae' by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (2015)'Karen' by Blast Theory (2015)'Blood Story' by Melvin Burgess

Readers, literary critics, and theorists alike have long demonstrated an abiding fascination with the author, both as a real person—an artist and creator—and as a theoretical concept that shapes the way we read literary works. Whether anonymous, pseudonymous, or trending on social media, authors continue to be an object of critical and readerly interest. Yet theories surrounding authorship have yet to be satisfactorily updated to register the changes wrought on the literary sphere by the advent of the digital age, the recent turn to autofiction, and the current literary climate more generally. In Reading the Contemporary Author the contributors look back on the long history of theorizing the author and offer innovative new approaches for understanding this elusive figure. Mapping the contours of the vast territory that is contemporary authorship, this collection investigates authorship in the context of narrative genres ranging from memoir and autobiographically informed texts to biofiction and novels featuring novelist narrators and characters. Bringing together the perspectives of leading scholars in narratology, cultural theory, literary criticism, stylistics, comparative literature, and autobiography studies, Reading the Contemporary Author demonstrates that a variety of interdisciplinary viewpoints and critical stances are necessary to capture the multifaceted nature of contemporary authorship.

Fictionality and Multimodal Narratives interrogates the multimodal relationship between fictionality and factuality. The contemporary discussion about fictionality coincides with an increase in anxiety regarding the categories of fact and fiction in popular culture and global media. Today’s media-saturated historical moment and political climate give a sense of urgency to the concept of fictionality, distinct from fiction, specifically in relation to modes and media of discourse. Torsa Ghosal and Alison Gibbons explicitly interrogate the relationship of fictionality with multimodal strategies of narrative construction in the present media ecology. Contributors consider the ways narrative structures, their reception, and their theoretical frameworks in narratology are influenced and changed by media composition—particularly new media. By accounting for the relationship of multimodal composition with the ontological complexity of narrative worlds, Fictionality and Multimodal Narratives fills a critical gap in contemporary narratology—the discipline that has, to date, contributed most to the conceptualization of fictionality.

This edited collection brings together an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars who together offer cutting-edge insights into the complex roles, functions, and effects of pronouns in literary texts. The book engages with a range of text-types, including poetry, drama, and prose from different periods and regions, in English and in translation. Beginning with analyses of the first-person pronoun, it moves onto studies of the subject dynamics of first- and second-person, before considering plural modes of narration and how pronoun use can help to disperse narrative perspective. The volume then debates the functional constraints of pronouns in fictional contexts and finally reflects upon the theoretical advancements presented in the collection. This innovative volume will appeal to students and scholars of linguistics, stylistics and cognitive poetics, narratology, theoretical and applied linguistics, psychology and literary criticism.

Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, Depth brings together many of the most influential voices in the scholarly and critical debate about post-postmodernism and twenty-first century aesthetics, arts and culture. By relating cutting-edge analyses of contemporary literature, the visual arts and film and television to recent social, technological and economic developments, the volume provides both a map and an itinerary of today's metamodern cultural landscape. As its organising principle, the book takes Fredric Jameson's canonical arguments about the waning of historicity, affect and depth in the postmodern culture of western capitalist societies in the twentieth century, and re-evaluates and reconceptualises these notions in a twenty-first century context. In doing so, it shows that the contemporary moment should be regarded as a transitional period from the postmodern and into the metamodern cultural moment.