French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Banfield, New Unspeakable Sentences: Describing the Unobserved and Other Essays
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Ann Banfield
New Unspeakable Sentences
Describing the Unobserved and Other Essays
Texts collected, edited, and introduced by Sylvie Patron
Preface: Ann Banfield
Translation: Nicolle Lallot, Jean-Marie Marandin, and Sylvie Patron
Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, "Sciences du langage" series, 2019
336 p. — EAN: 9782842928414 — 28€
A study of what Ann Banfield calls the "unspeakable sentences" of fictional narrative, foremost among them the sentences of free indirect style (sentences spoken by no speaker).
The seven essays collected in this volume were written and/or published after the publication of Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the Language of Fiction (1982), translated into French under the title Phrases sans parole in 1995 (Éditions du Seuil). They adopt its theoretical framework and extend its analyses to other contexts, where they acquire new uses, functions, and values.
An extract from the fourth chapter can be read in the Atelier de théorie littéraire, by kind permission of the author: "Describing the Unobserved: Events Grouped Around an Empty Center".
*
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
1. Direct Discourse, Indirect Discourse, and Free Indirect Style (Represented Speech and Thought)
1.1. The Transformational Hypothesis
1.2. The Phrase-Structure Hypothesis and the Introduction of the E Node into the Base
1.3. A Grammatical Definition of Free Indirect Style (of Represented Speech and Thought)
1.4. Surprising Conclusions for Literary Theory
2. Banfield's Theory of Narrative Sentences (I)
2.1. Narrative Sentences and Sentences of Communication
2.2. The Author and the Narrator
3. Banfield's Narrative Theory (II): Other Narrative Sentences
4. Banfield's Narrative Theory (III): Other Contexts, Other Uses
4.1. Polemical Contexts
4.2. A Non-Polemical Context: The Development of the Theory of Narrative Tenses
4.3. The Historical Background of the Theory of Narrative Sentences
4.4. The Philosophical Use of the Theory of Narrative Sentences
Origin of the Essays
Editor's Note
Chapter 1.
Linguistic Competence and Literary Theory
1. Linguistic Point of View and Pragmatic Point of View
2. The Attribution of Point of View
3. Empathic versus Subjective Lexical Items
3.1. Naming as a Problem of Linguistic Point of View: Proper Nouns versus Nouns of Quality
3.2. Empathic versus Evaluative Adjectives
3.3. Subject- or Object-Centered Verbs versus Deictic Verbs
3.4. The Inadequacy of the Informal Method
4. Conclusion
Chapter 2.
Grammar and Memory
Chapter 3.
Writing, Narration, and the Grammar of French
Chapter 4.
Describing the Unobserved: Events Grouped Around an Empty Center
Chapter 5.
Writing and the Unsaid
Chapter 6.
The Name of the Subject: The He
The Grammar of the Cogito
The Reduction to a Parsimonious Cogito
The First Person as Speaker
The First Person as Agent
The First Person as Ego
The First Person as Person and as a Person's Name
The First Person as Consciousness
Rendering Cogitatur Indubitable
The Grammar of Persistent Things and the Grammar of Momentary Subjectivity
The Exceptional Status of the First Person
The Third-Person Pronoun of the Narrative Voice
Descartes' Private Thought as a Change or Difference of Point of View
The Neutral
Chapter 7.
The Proper Name of the Real
The Sentence I think
Clear and Distinct Names
The First-Person Pronoun: Logical Proper Name or Rigid Designator?
The Sentence he thinks, as one says it rains
The Sentence he thinks/she thinks
The Sentence it thinks
The Sentence it writes itself
References for Examples
Bibliographical References
Index
Ann Banfield, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the Language of Fiction (Routledge, 1982), translated into French under the title Phrases sans parole. Théorie du récit et du style indirect libre (Seuil, 1995), and The Phantom Table: Woolf, Fry, Russell, and the Epistemology of Modernism (Cambridge UP, 2000).
Sylvie Patron, associate professor at Université Paris Diderot, specializes in the history and epistemology of narrative theory. In particular, she edited S-Y. Kuroda's Pour une théorie poétique de la narration (Armand Colin, 2012).
This volume represents a significant contribution to formalist narratology and the linguistic study of literature. By building upon the generative grammar framework established in her landmark 1982 book, Unspeakable Sentences, Ann Banfield addresses the unique syntactic structures of literary narrative. The core of her theory lies in 'represented speech and thought' or free indirect style—passages that convey a character's inner consciousness without an explicit narrator's voice. These essays situate these 'unspeakable' sentences within broader linguistic and philosophical traditions, exploring how literature represents subjectivity and the unobserved world.
Scholars and advanced students of narrative theory, linguistics, and the philosophy of language will find this collection invaluable. The essays offer deep insights into how grammatical structures shape our understanding of time, memory, and the self, bridging the gap between formal linguistics and literary analysis. By examining the grammar of the third-person pronoun and Cartesian philosophy, the book helps readers grapple with fundamental questions about the nature of the narrative voice and the representation of consciousness. It is an essential resource for anyone interested in the precise mechanics of literary style and narrative epistemology.