Showing papers on "Narratology published in 1987"

A dictionary of narratology

Abstract: "A Dictionary of Narratology is a remarkable feat. It is a specialized dictionary documenting important research, compiled by a scholar who has been centrally involved in the field and who writes with clarity, precision, and a sense of humor."--Substance

Narrators and Focalizers: The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad

Abstract: Acclaimed as one of the pioneering texts to introduce narratology (the theory that deals with the general principles underlying narrative texts) to classical scholarship, Irene de Jong's work explains the key concepts such as "narrator", "focalization" and "prolepsis", highlighting their relevance by using them for the analysis and interpretation of Homer's "Iliad". What is the role of the narrator and how do the parts of the story told by the narrator relate to the many speeches for which Homer is famous? This work was first published in 1987 and it is reissued here with a new introduction by the author, offering an overview of the trends in Homeric narratological scholarship over the last decade.

Aristotle's Poetics

Abstract: This paper provides an overview and commentary of Aristotle's theory of poetry, of drama, and of narrative structure, as presented the Poetics. The main emphasis falls on plot structure, but we expound other important subjects dealt with in the work, such as the cognitive origins of literature, the nature of poetry, an incipient theory of media and the analysis of genres, the nature and elements of tragedy, and other subjects such as epic narrative and the structure of critical debates.

Lethal love : feminist literary readings of biblical love stories

Abstract: Preface Introduction 1 The Emergence of the Lethal Woman, or the Use of Hermeneutic Models Pregnancy and the Limits of Power The Use of Interpretation The Use of Form The Use of Frame-Theory The Use of Narratology The Use of the Text The Use of Symmetry The Use of Frames The Use of the Subject The Use of Competition 2 Delilah Decomposed: SamsonOs Talking Cure and the Thetoric of Subjectivity Reading Heroes Questions Asked and Problems Revealed The Emergence of the Hero Samson and Delilah SamsonOs Death Who Is Samson? Samson, Patriarchy, and Social Reality 3 Heroism and Proper Names, or the Fruits of Analogy Balancing the Tension Starting from a Detail Narrativization of the Proper Name In Search of the Subject In Search of Foundations, or the Subjects versus the Law The Unconscious Performing Speech Acts: Symptoms Reflecting Reflection 4One Woman, Many Men, and the Dialectic of Chronology The Limits of Higher Criticism On the Margins of Anachrony: Paralepsis, or the Deviation from the Straight Path Tamar from Father to Son, or On Subversion Juxtaposition, or Similarity behind Displacement OnanOs Offspring, or How to Conceive Safely TamarOs Matchmaking: The Mirror Stage 5 Sexuality, Sin, and Sorrow: The Emergence of the Female Character Characterizing Character The Emergence of a Myth: Collocation The Emergence of the Human Body: Unaccomplishment The Emergence of the Female Body: Sexual Difference The Emergence of Activity: Sin? The Emergence of Character: Sorrow The Effect of Naming Afterword References Index

Schumann and Late Eighteenth-Century Narrative Strategies

Abstract: several recent approaches,' while some aspects of philosophical aesthetics have suggested others.2 The model for the present approach is not aesthetics, nor even semiotics save in the most general sense, but an area of study called narratology, which inhabits both literary criticism (Roland Barthes and Jonathan Culler) and philosophy of history (R. G. Collingwood, Paul Veyne, and Paul Ricoeur).3 Narratology deals with ways of understanding units larger than sentences, and deals with this in a less rigorous, systematic way than semiotics. While it does require confirmation of inter-subjective validity in that it must persuade, it does not claim the objective verifiability that we associate with science. The present approach is deductive, not inductive: its goal is better to understand made objects. It is subjective in that it depends on the education, intuition, and talent of the individual critic-interpreter. As such it may be seen as a branch of hermeneutics.

Isocrates's use of narrative in the Evagoras: Epideictic rhetoric and moral action

Abstract: Examining the Evagoras from the perspective of contemporary narrative theory, this essay inquires into the internal adjustments that the encomium underwent as epideictic rhetoric sought to play a role in the affairs of the state. The innovative nature of Isocrates's encomium is located in the uniqueness of its narrative structure: a combination of a fictional narrative (the quest of virtue) with a historical narrative (the biographical sketch of the Cyprian king).

Recent Books on Narrative Theory: An Essay-Review

Abstract: Contemporary narrative theory is concerned with the analysis of narrative discourse and narrativity in order to explain the many forms and structures of storytelling in world literature and their implications. It also focuses on possible relations existing among mythic, historical, and fictional narratives, and it reflects on the possibility and implications of reconceptualizing these relations for literary, cultural, and historiographie theory. The books under review here* are too diverse to allow for an integrated account that would make possible a hierarchical or some other larger context in which to place precisely and without distortion the theory presented, or the theories criticized, by each of the books in relation to one another. My attempt in the limited space here is to identify some of the central threads in each book in order to remark rather generally

Narratology and Thematics

Abstract: In the past sixty or so years, Russian, French, American, and other analysts of narrative have formulated an impressive array of technical concepts to classify the multifarious aspects of story, plot, characterization, narration, point of view, speech representation, and so on. Much of this work has concentrated on the abstraction of basic plot summaries. This paper will argue that all such attempts fail to account systematically for the inevitable shift from a sequence of actions to an underlying theme. The absence of an adequate conceptual bridge between narratology and thematics suggests that the former is an intrinsically limited discipline; paradoxically, some of its exponents are now choosing to limit it further by concentrating on \"discourse\" alone rather than \"story\" and by denying that narratives actually consist of sequences of causally related temporal actions. One of the earliest narrative analyses of modern times (a qualification that saves going back to Aristotle) is Viktor Shklovsky's \"constituent structure\" analysis of the Sherlock Holmes stories, published in 1925. This essay does not seem to have been translated into English, but L. M. O'Toole excerpts Shklovsky's nine-point summary, which can be further reduced as follows: Holmes and Watson are sitting around; a client appears and narrates evidence; Watson interprets wrongly; they travel

Character and characterization in religious autobiography

Abstract: character, for in autobiography the writer describes and evaluates the development of his or her character from the perspective of present religious convictions. This interpretation of autobiography is now in doubt, however, because the central notions of self and character are being questioned or attacked by much recent narrative theory. Many theories of narrative collapse traditional humanistic notions of self, character, and author into "text" and see in autobiography not the representation of character but a process of fictional characterization. The contrasting emphases on character and characterization raise crucial issues for understanding religious autobiography. This paper argues that character and characterization should not be thought of as two alternative interpretations of the activity of the religious autobiographer, but as inseparable concerns.' Books by McFague, Novak, McClendon, Gunn, Dunne, Hauerwas, Stroup, and Goldberg all discuss the significance for religious studies of autobiography (and/or biography). While these works interpret autobiography in the light of different projects, they agree about its signifi-

Narrative Foiled in Bergman's The Seventh Seal

Abstract: In spite of the long strides narrative theory has taken in the past twenty-five years, for the most part it has advanced without casting so much as a backwards glance at its straggling companion, theory of the drama. But unlike contemporary theory, early literary theory often defined or characterized narrative in opposition to drama. G&rard Genette, who has sketched the early history of the opposition in "Frontibres du recit,"1 points out that of the two manners of poetic imitation (mimesis), narrative (diegesis) and dramatic representation, Aristotle preferred the latter because it is a stronger and more direct mode of imitation. Plato elevated narrative over drama, but for the same reason: narrative is less directly imitative and therefore less illusionistic than drama, less given to impersonation and deception.2 Unlike recent theory, many narratives of the past two hundred years do themselves glance, whether querulously, critically, admiringly, condescendingly, or nostalgically, in the direction of drama. For instance, novels often express nostalgia for the cultural conditions from which the theatre emerges, which are very different from those in which the novel and the film have thrived. In the more than two centuries in which the novel has eclipsed drama, narratives have often used drama as their foil, to help them understand the theoretical presuppositions behind their own activity. One such narrative is Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Narrative is the ghost the knight has been pursuing during the long years of the Crusade and still pursues through his plague-ridden homeland. The primitive theatre of Jof, Mia, and Skat serves as a foil for both the knight's and film's narrative projects, as a means of clarifying the underlying premises and goals of and obstacles to narrative. This contrast has important ramifications for the film's understanding of itself, since film has roots in and allegiances with both theatre and the novel. Bergman's own work for the theatre throughout his career as a filmmaker is well known. We might regard his film - which is based upon a play - as an essay exploring many of the essential differences between the two mediums in which its author

Narratology, Obsolescent Paradigms, and "Scientific" Poetics; or Whatever Happened to PTL?

Abstract: The crossing of the lines of structuralism and poststructuralism in 1976—the one ascendant, the other dependent—can be marked by two events: the publication of the English translation of Derrida's Of Grammatology and the appearance of Vol. I, No. 1 ofPTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature. It was under the embrace and blessing of PTL1 that the new poetics was to flourish and ascend to its confirmation as a science among sciences. In this way the heretofore undisciplined, idiosyncratic, subjective, and naively theoretical study of literature could finally achieve respectability. The call for a \"poetics\" of literature in the initial volume of PTL was a call for the systemic study of literature and brought with it a highly traditional distinction, proclaimed in the initial essay by Benjamin Hrushovski, editor of the journal:

'Ken' as deel van die spraakpatroon van die verteller in die Johannesevangelie

Abstract: 'To know' as part of the pattern of speech of the narrator in John's gospel In line with modem narrative theory, this study presupposes that point of view is manifested on several planes in the narrative. It is argued that in John's gospel the phraseological plane should play a key role when point of view is established. With this presupposition in mind the pattern of speech of the narrator is shown. The narrative is ripped lengthwise along 'to know' and related terms. A cross-cut is then made at those points where 'to know' and related terms occur. As a result of this method a distinct pattern of speech emerged. From this pattern it is concluded that the narrator's point of view is that Jesus is the legitimate Christ because He knows that He was sent by the Father and that He will return to his Father. Because of this knowledge Jesus obeys His Father.