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Document Details :

Title: Montage en netwerk
Subtitle: Ander proza en de postmoderne roman
Author(s): VITSE, Sven
Journal: Spiegel der Letteren
Volume: 51    Issue: 4   Date: 2009   
Pages: 441-470
DOI: 10.2143/SDL.51.4.2042711

Abstract :
Literary scholars do not agree about the relationship between experimental ‘other prose’ and postmodern fiction in the Netherlands and Flanders. This article contributes to the comparative study of other prose and the postmodern novel by focusing on two formal principles that play an important part in respectively other prose and the postmodern novel: montage and network. Montage implies that various scraps of texts and different types of text are juxtaposed, so as to break up the narrative structure. A network signifies that a number of textual elements are connected in a complex, rhizomatic structure, generating a surplus of meaning. Authors of other prose use montage to criticize the prevailing ideology and to attack the unity of the literary work. The network system implies a world view which leaves no room for an avant-garde outside position. This article discusses examples of montage and network taken from literary works by authors of other prose (Polet, Vogelaar, Van Marissing) and of postmodern prose (Ferron, Jongstra, Verhelst). At the end, a few counterexamples are discussed to qualify the main thesis of this article.

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