Philip Egan
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Philip J. Egan
Department: English
Email: philip.egan@wmich.edu
Website: http://www.wmich.edu/english/facultyandstaff/profiles/egan.html
Research Interests
Key words or phrases (for searches):
- spoken narrative in literature
- dialect in American literature
- dramatic monologue in literature
- narrative technique
- embedded narrative
- oral narrative
Description(s):
I am American literature specialist interested in ways in which spoken narratives, embedded in a larger texts (like novels), affect both the structure and characterizations of the longer work. It turns out that many American authors from Charles Brockden Brown to John Barth—including major figures like Herman Melville and William Faulkner—repeatedly use this device. My interests are primarily literary, but they get me into some broader linguistic issues—e.g., dialectology; speech-act theory; orality and its representation in writing.