Ryan (1991) explored this line of reasoning even further, linking it to the simulation paradigm of AI. In 2019 the LHN was then migrated to a DRUPAL-CMS, with an updated design. eds. Greimas [1973] 1987) complements the approach. “Narrative representation” is therefore a preferable definition of narratology’s object of study in that it counteracts this reductionism in two ways: (a) narrative representation is not media specific, since its specificity is of a functional order and lies in narrativity. During its initial or “classical” phase, from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, narratologists were particularly interested in identifying and defining narrative universals. Huet [1670] 1715; Blanckenburg [1774] 1965) was therefore normative: would the new literary form stand up to the qualitative standards of the ancient epos? He distinguished various types of narration which stretched, abbreviated, repeated, paused and interrupted, skipped and eliminated sub-sequences, while other types perfectly imitated the flow of narrated time. What is the principal methodological status of the undertaking now that it has transformed into a “Narratology beyond Literary Studies” (Meister et al. This tendency is still echoed in a concise 1993 definition of narratology as “the set of general statements on narrative genres, on the systematics of narrating (telling a story) and on the structure of plot” (Ryan & von Alphen 1993: 110). This sparked fundamental narratological controversies over Genettian concepts such as “focalization” (Bal 1977; Jahn 1996, 1999b) and set the stage for numerous debates that were to result in postclassical narratology. Adam [1985] 1994; Karlgren & Cutting 1994; Toolan [1988] 2001). Building on Lévi-Strauss’s (1955, [1958] 1963) structural analysis of myths, Greimas ([1966] 1983) proposed a deep-level model of signification termed the “semiotic square,” which represents the semiotic infrastructure of all signifying systems. 2005). Ed. Others have investigated historical links between narratology and German Erzähltheorie (Cornils & Schernus 2003; Fludernik & Margolin 2004). While generated from static HTML the latest LHN version nevertheless preserves all the core technical features that the LHN target audience has grown accustomed to, such as a full text search facility, one-click-export of reference data and integration of digital humanities tools for text analysis. When we started the online version in 2009 we decided to call it "living" because of its dynamic nature. In terms of technology the LHN has seen three iterations. Late 19th-century literary history and theory equated narrative with literary narrative, thus leaving research on the folktale to specialists. 2007), film (Bordwell 1985; Branigan 1992; Schlickers 1997; Mittell 2007; Eder 2008), music (Kramer 1991; Wolf 2002; Seaton 2005; Grabócz 2009), the visual and performing arts (Bal 1991; Ryan 2003, ed. Manfred Jahn, Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative, su uni-koeln.de. Monika Fludernik and Daniel Jacob. Defining narratology in positive terms may prove difficult, but defining it ex negativo is not: a statement on narrative representation―a theory, an argument, but also a concrete empirical finding―is not narratological if it does not ultimately concern “narrative qua narrative” (Prince 1990: 10). 137–51, in Hellinger , M. and Bussmann , H. eds. Beginning with the contributors to the programmatic 1966 special issue of the journal Communications and the creation during the 1970s by Bremond, Genette, Todorov, Marin, and Metz of the Centre de recherches sur les arts et le langage (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique), informal organizational models (also represented by the Tel Aviv group with its influential journal Poetics Today, or in the Amsterdam School initiated by Bal) have played a decisive role in shaping narratology as a paradigmatic inter-discipline. Bal ([1985] 1997) and others proved narratology’s relevance in the analysis of cross-textual phenomena such as intertextuality and intermediality, as well as in that of intra-textual phenomena of polyvocality (Lanser 1981). French structuralism eventually gave the decisive impulse for the formation of narratology as a methodologically coherent, structure-oriented variant of narrative theory. Core elements and ideas at play in the narratological modeling of narrative were introduced as early as Greek antiquity, while others originated from the late 19th century onward, particularly in the context of phenomenological, morphological and hermeneutic taxonomies and theories of literary and folk narratives. Dan Shen. ), The Fictional Truths of the Representational Arts, Weixler, Antonius; Lukasm, Werner / (eds. http://www.imageandnarrative.be/narratology/davidherman.htm, http://www.icn.uni-hamburg.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=8&Itemid=13, http://www.sdu.dk/Om_SDU/Institutter_centre/Ilkm/Forskning/Forskningsprojekter/C_Narratologi.aspx, http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/narratology, NarrBib (short for “Narratological Bibliography”) <, ICN (Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology, Hamburg University) <, Project Narrative (Ohio State University) <, Zentrum für Erzählforschung (Bergische University, Wuppertal <, Center for Narratologiske Studier (University of Southern Denmark, Kolding) <, Plato and Aristotle: Representational Modes and the Functional Relation between Character and Action, The Normative Paradigm: 17th to early 20th-century Theories of the Novel, Re-introducing the Formal Paradigm: Spielhagen and Friedemann, From Catalogue to Formula: Aarne-Thompson vs. Propp, Pre-structuralist Theories of Narrative: Perspective, Time, Logic and Rhetoric, Poststructuralist Narratology: 1980–1990, Post-classical Narratology and “New” Narratologies: 1990 to Present. Based on Wiki technology the LHN therefore included commentary and feed back functionalities for registered users who wished to engage in a moderated discussion, and who contributed to the continuous expansion and updating of what eventually grew into one of the most often cited narratological resources. In this respect, three phases can be identified: Phase 1: The formation of cross-disciplinary narratological interest groups. Cohn 1981; Kindt & Müller 2006; Cornils 2007; Schernus 2007), as does the more general narratological general debate on the concept of narrative perspective (cf. Descriptive concepts such as mise en abyme or metalepsis (Pier → Metalepsis) seem to be less at risk (cf. From 1966 to 1972, narratology focused mainly on the former. from pure “showing”). Narratology. In Germany, the terms Erzähltheorie and Erzählforschung were already well established and had been in use since the mid-1950s (Lämmert 1955), which might also explain why Ihwe’s 1972 attempt to introduce the term “narrativics” (Narrativik) met with limited success. And in case you think that a crucial lemma is missing, or that an important mistake or oversight requires correction please feel free to contact the editors. James’s admirer Lubbock ([1921] 1972) postulated that such character-bound “point of view” should in fact be considered the qualitative standard for narrative prose, thus elevating James’s technical distinction into one of principle, namely that of “showing” vs. “telling.” According to Lubbock, a coherent mimetic representation can only originate from the epistemological point of view of a character (i.e. The following decade was dominated by two major trends: a widening of narratology’s scope beyond literary narrative and the importing of concepts and theories from other disciplines (Ryan & van Alphen 1993: 112). (c) Transgeneric approaches (Hühn & Sommer → Narration in Poetry and Drama) and intermedial approaches (Ryan → Narration in Various Media; cf. According to Plato, the lyric genre is restricted to the use of diegesis and the dramatic genre to the use of mimesis, with only the epic genre combining both. The Living Handbook of Narratology, su lhn.uni-hamburg.de. This fundamental distinction of the two principal modes of narrating not only anticipated the 20th-century opposition showing vs. telling, but it also prefigured one of the three analytical dimensions adopted by Genette ([1972] 1983), namely voice. HANDBOOK OF STEMMATOLOGY History, Methodology, Digital Approaches. Barthes ([1966] 1975) proposed a functional systematics of narrated events which distinguishes “kernels,” i.e. The Handbook of Language and Gender, Oxford, Blackwell. Greimassian semantics is a case in point: used as a descriptive grammar, its categories were defined with a degree of generality too broad to be faulted; put to the test as a generative grammar, its yield was too abstract to demonstrate the necessity or the explanatory power of the transformational process from semiotic deep structure to the surface structure of narrated events and characters. The question of the validity and reliability of narrative utterances was again raised by Booth ([1961] 1983), this time from a rhetorical and ethical perspective. This concern continued to dominate many theories of the paradigmatic narrative genre right into the early 20th century, most prominently in Lukács ([1916] 1993). Literature in particular was considered a phenomenon sui generis that cannot be explained adequately in terms of content or of biographical or historical context. Gender Across Languages: The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men , vol. Focusing on aspects of thematics and didactics, the main question motivating its early theorists (e.g. A philosophically more concise contribution to narrative theory was Hamburger ([1957] 1973), a book which explored the semantics and pragmatics of literary communication, and in particular the specific logic of the use of temporal and personal deixis under the conditions of fictional reference. Nünning & Nünning 2002: 15). Stanzel understood these three narrative situations to be ideal types and thus modeled them on a synthetic typological circle. 896-909. were undertaken starting in the 1970s and continue to nourish narratological reflection today. Wolf 2005; Schmid 2005a), while others―notably the core narratological concept of narrator―resist straightforward appropriation, as film or computer game studies (e.g. When we started the online version in 2009 we decided to call it "living" because of its dynamic nature. Contemporary narratology has clearly responded to the call to broaden the scope of methodology and object domain. Overview: The relationship between the narrator, the focalizer and the focalized are essential in crafting a narrative that focuses on something. These include the North American “International Society for the Study of Narrative,” the Scandinavian “Nordic Network,” and the “European Narratology Network.”. The most influential contribution from a narratological perspective was the formalist differentiation of fabula and sujet (TomaÅ¡evskij [1925] 1971), in which the latter is defined as a defamiliarisation of the former. Ed. The living handbook of narratology invites you to become actively involved in further developing and enhancing our handbook – you can do so by discussing existing entries and making suggestions as to how they might be enhanced, or by pointing out emerging fields of narratological interest that might warrant a new entry in our handbook. ); a diverse scientific community engaging in national, international, and interdisciplinary research projects. Descriptive rather than prescriptive by design, Pouillon (1946) broadened the scope and distinguished three principal forms defined in terms of the narrator’s temporal and cognitive stance vis-à-vis the characters. The neologism alluded to social and natural sciences such as sociology and biology (Herman 2005: 19), and its invention by Todorov is sometimes interpreted as a foundational act. In the “I narrative situation,” the narrator exists and acts within the narrated world; in the “authorial narrative situation,” he is positioned outside the narrated world but dominates the process of mediation by commenting on events; in the “figural narrative situation,” the third-person narrator remains unobtrusive while the narrative information is filtered through the internal perspective of the reflector character. This has motivated some to conclude that narratology is in fact a textual theory whose scope extends beyond narratives and to claim that “none of the distinctions introduced by narratology to text theory is specific to any genre” (Titzmann 2003: 201). In Handbook of Narratology, 2nd edition. Phase 2: The advent of officially funded narratological institutions for academic research and teaching since the late 1990s, such as the “Forschergruppe Narratologie” and the “Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology” at Hamburg University, the “Zentrum für Erzählforschung” at Wuppertal University as well as the “Center for Narratological Studies” at the University of Southern Denmark and the “Project Narrative” at Ohio State University in the US. 2009), which includes seminal original texts in (German) translation. The living handbook of narratology invites you to become actively involved in further developing and enhancing our handbook – you can do so by discussing existing entries and making suggestions as to how they might be enhanced, or by pointing out emerging fields of narratological interest that might warrant a new entry in our handbook. Nünning 2003; Nünning & Nünning 2002). Against this background, the structuralists engaged in a systematic re-examination of the two dimensions of narrative already identified by Å klovskij, fabula and sujet, re-labeled by Todorov in French as histoire and discours and by Genette as histoire and récit. eds. This new paradigm was proclaimed in a 1966 special issue of the journal Communications, programmatically titled “L’analyse structurale du récit.” It contained articles by leading structuralists Barthes, Eco, Genette, Greimas, Todorov, and the film theorist Metz. An even more complex stratified model in which the positions of character and narrator are correlated in the four dimensions of ideology, phraseology, spatio-temporal constraints, and psychology of perspective was developed by Uspenskij ([1970] 1973), a member of the Moscow-Tartu school of semiotics. Fabia Zanasi, Glossario di Narratologia, su homolaicus.com. His study ([1883] 1967) introduced a fundamental taxonomic distinction between first- and third-person narration and also reflected on the author-narrator relation. Partly on the basis of such revisions, Propp’s functional model served as a fundamental point of reference for the elaboration of “story grammars,” Chomskian generative grammar being the other. 2001; Hühn et al. 2004; Wolf 2004) explore the relevance of narratological concepts for the study of genres and media outside the traditional object domain of text-based literary narrative. Derridaen deconstruction was introduced by Culler (1981), who questioned the implicit genealogy from story (histoire, fabula) to discourse and argued that the relation of dependency between the two is the exact opposite: discourse generates story. This design was carried over to the third, current version which we launched in 2020. The methodological significance of this insight can hardly be overestimated: Friedemann had effectively defined the essence of narrative in structural terms, taking the principle of Plato’s phenomenological definition of the epos one step further. ; Herman 2002; Fehn et al. At the same time, the last two desiderata underscore literary narrative’s paradigmatic status for the narratological study of narrative representation. Its concepts and models are widely used as heuristic tools, and narratological theorems play a central role in the exploration and modeling of our ability to produce and process narratives in a multitude of forms, media, contexts, and communicative practices. L’intrigue, de l'italien intrigo [1] (« complication, embrouillement, imbroglio ») est l'ensemble des évènements et des faits qui constituent un récit. Narratology is a humanities discipline dedicated to the study of the logic, principles, and practices of narrative representation. In contrast to his formalist predecessors and structuralist colleagues, Genette had no intention of designing a fully coherent and self-contained theory of narrative. White 1980; Kreiswirth 1995). It is the system commonly used in scientific publications. [2006] 2007; Pier & García Landa eds. He introduced the concept of “unreliable narrator,” interpreting cases of conflicting and self-contradicting narration as an aesthetic device aimed at signaling the author’s moral and normative distance from his narrator. A phenomenological contribution to the theory of perspective was that of the Austrian Anglicist Stanzel, who identified three proto-typical “narrative situations” ([1955] 1971). Hamburger pointed out that neither the subject of an utterance nor the utterance’s temporal location and reference can be adequately inferred from the words and sentences of a literary narrative: literature overwrites the rules and conventions of everyday language use with its own logic. Friedemann ([1910] 1965) took exception to this normative postulate. Posts about focalization written by shawshaw24. 1999). From May 2009 to April 2013, it was hosted and maintained by Hamburg University Press on a Wiki system. With time, the tension between structuralist narratology’s original concern for systematicity and logical coherence and the need for a response to calls for a more pragmatically oriented theory of narrative could no longer be ignored, as observed by Prince (2003). However, can conceptual imports taken from structuralist narratology retain their theoretical precision and integrity in a foreign methodological context, or are they not rather destined to degenerate into mere metaphoric labels? Clark, William [1995a], 'Narratology and the History of Science', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 26, 1–72. This systematic and methodological gap was addressed by Genette ([1972] 1980), who presented a comprehensive taxonomy of discourse phenomena developed alongside a detailed analysis of narrative composition and technique in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu. At the point of writing (20 February 2021) no further additions and revisions to the LHN are planned. Cognitivist approaches also play a crucial role in AI research, the aim of which is to model or simulate human narrative intelligence (Jahn 1999a; Mateas & Sengers eds. In the 1880s, the pioneers of a new empirical approach in folklore studies formed the “Finnish School,” and in 1910 Aarne, one of its members, published the first version of a catalogue known as the Aarne-Thompson-Index (Aarne & Thompson [1928] 1961), used internationally to the present day (Uther 2004). 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