Cognitive Narrative Studies and the Possibilities of Cut-up Prose Analysis
Cognitive Narrative Studies and the Possibilities of Cut-up Prose Analysis

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I am concerned with the representation of minds and mentalprocesses in cut-up literature and with the possibilities of narratological researchof experimental prose of this kind. In this, I follow the approach suggested by AlanPalmer (2004) which defines narrative fiction as the representation of fictional mentalfunctioning. I thus understand ‘mind’, not only as speech and thoughts as they arerepresented with the help of direct, reported and free indirect discourse, but also suchmental states (going beyond the category of consciousness) as emotions, sensations,dispositions, beliefs, attitudes, imagination, intentions, and motives (representedusually with the help of reported thought). A key-concept in definition of narrativeis thus not ‘event’, but rather ‘experience’. The author I focus on in my case study isPavel Ulitin (1918-1986) whose work is compared with that of William S. Burroughs(1914–1997). Both authors use cut-ups in different socio-cultural contexts and theirworks can be treated as a specific versions of this technique. Hence, my paper startswith a review of the recent literature on cut-ups in order to outline the thematic background of this research, then proceeds to consider cognitive narrative approaches,which are metodologically relevant for my study, dealing with experimental literary/multimodal texts, then discusses the case-study – namely Ulitin’s prose, and closeswith some general conslusions referring to the potential of cognitive approaches toexperimental literature.

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