 | Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology The notion of possible worlds has played a decisive role in postclassical narratology by awakening interest in the nature of fictionality and in emphasizing the notion of world as a source of aesthetic experience in narrative texts. As a theory concerned with the opposition between the actual world that we belong to and possible worlds created by the imagination, possible worlds theory has made significant contributions to narratology. Alice Bell is a reader in English language and literature at Sheffield Hallam University in England. She is the author of The Possible Worlds of Hypertext Fiction and the coeditor of Analyzing Digital Fiction . Marie-Laure Ryan is an independent scholar and the laureate of the 2017 Wayne Booth Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the International Society for the Study of Narrative. She is the author and editor of numerous books and is the coauthor of Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Nebraska, 2014). |
