Narratology

About: Narratology is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2833 publications have been published within this topic receiving 50998 citations. The topic is also known as: narrative theory.

A Method for Qualitative Narrative Analysis of Psychotherapy Transcripts

Abstract: The approach described in this chapter has been influenced by three of the most significant developments in late twentieth century psychotherapy theory and practice: experiential therapy, narrative theory, and qualitative research methodology. Experiential models and practices have evolved from the pioneering work of Carl Rogers and other client-centered therapists and researchers (Rogers, 1951) to encompass a diversity of experientially-oriented therapies. The current status of experiential therapy is reviewed in Greenberg, Watson and Lietaer (1998). The key features of experiential approaches to therapy are a conception of the human subject as imbued with agency and reflexivity (McLeod, 1996b), and a perspective on therapeutic practice that eschews labelling/diagnosis and emphasises the resolution of personal difficulties through a process of meaning-making based in the expression and unfolding of immediate bodily feelings and emotions. The second source of influence has been the growing body of theory and practice in relation to narrative and storytelling. One of the most striking developments in philosophy, social science and psychology in the later years of the twentieth century has been the renewal of interest in narrative. Within psychology, there have been major contributions in this sphere from Bruner (1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993), Polkinghorne (1988) and Sarbin (1986)). The "narrative turn" has had a significant impact on the work of many counselors and psychotherapists. Although some important lines of development of what might be termed 'narrative-informed' therapies have taken place within psychoanalysis (Luborsky & Crits-Christoph, 1990; Schafer, 1992; Spence, 1982) and cognitive/constructivist therapy (Gonqalves, 1995; Russell & Van den Brock, 1992), it can be argued that it has only been in the writings of White and Epston (1990) and their colleagues that the value in therapy of playing close attention to the stories told by people, and in the ways in which these stories change and become "re-authored" has been fully appreciated and exploited (McLeod, 1997; Payne, 2000). The juxtaposition and integration of experiential and narrative frameworks for therapeutic practice is relatively unusual. Similiarities in therapeutic style between the founders of experiential therapy, such as Carl Rogers, and the founders of "post-structuralist" narrative therapy, such as Michael White and David Epston have been pointed out (Payne, 1999). However, beyond a shared ethic of affirmatory "not-knowing", it is possible to see that there are a number of ways in which experiential and narrative ideas and methods may complement each other. The studies by Rennie (1994) and Grafanaki and McLeod (1999), for example, have shown the importance of the therapeutic relationship in storytelling: the story the person tells in therapy is closely bound up with his or her moment-by-moment experiencing of self-in-relationship with the therapist and with his or her bodily experiencing of feeling and emotion. These are aspects of therapy that are neither theorised nor researchable within current narrative frameworks. At the same time, the experiential therapies have not evolved a language for identifying or reflecting upon stories, with the result that this important route into meaning-making is not exploited as much as it might be. Using experiential and narrative constructs together is a means of opening up a new "clearing" within which we are forced us to think in fresh ways about what happens in therapy. A third thread of influence has been the explosion of interest and creativity that has taken place around qualitative or "human science" methods in recent years, primarily within social science as a whole but more recently also within the field of counseling and psychotherapy research. There now exist a number of distinct genres of qualitative research: phenomenology, grounded theory, hermeneutics, metabletics, collaborative inquiry (see McLeod, 1996a, 2001). …

Ambiguous Discourse: Feminist Narratology and British Women Writers

Abstract: Carefully melding theory with close readings of texts, the contributors to this study explore the role of gender in the struggle for narrative control of specific works by British writers Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Anita Brookner, Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson and Mina Loy. This collection of 12 essays is devoted to feminist narratology - the combination of feminist theory with the study of the structures that underpin all narratives. Until recently, narratology has resisted the advances of feminism in part, as some contributors argue, because theory has replicated past assumptions of male authority and point of view in narrative. Feminist narratology, however, contextualizes the cultural constructions of gender within its study of narrative strategies. Nine of these essays are original, and three have been revised for publication in this volume.

The cinematic mode in twentieth-century fiction a comparative approach

Abstract: This study deals with the influence of film form in fiction in terms of narrative discourse, focusing on issues of genre, narration, temporality, and the imitation of cinematic techniques. It provides a theoretical analysis of different methodologies (intermediality theory, semiotics, narratology, genre theory) which are useful to assess how a cinematic dimension has found a place in literary writing. This research, in particular, puts forth the idea of a 'para-cinematic narrator', a 'flattening of the narrative relief', and a 'para-cinematic narrative contract' as constitutive items of strongly cinematised fiction. These three theoretical items are subsumed in the concept of 'cinematic mode in fiction', which describes a distillation of characteristics of the film form on the written page. This research therefore represents a theoretical attempt to demonstrate how the cinematic component integrates the stylistic and generic traits of novels and short stories relating to different periods, styles and genres of the twentieth century. The proposed theoretical model is tested on a corpus of American, French, and, especially, Italian case studies. The remediation of film that emerges from these texts points to a complex interconnection between cinema and literature which still requires full acknowledgment in literary history.

Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative

Abstract: In this wide-ranging survey of ancient Greek narrative from archaic epic to classical prose, Alex Purves shows how stories unfold in space as well as in time. She traces a shift in authorial perspective, from a godlike overview to the more focused outlook of human beings caught up in a developing plot, inspired by advances in cartography, travel, and geometry. Her analysis of the temporal and spatial dimensions of ancient narrative leads to new interpretations of important texts by Homer, Herodotus, and Xenophon, among others, showing previously unnoticed connections between epic and prose. Drawing on the methods of classical philology, narrative theory, and cultural geography, Purves recovers a poetics of spatial representation that lies at the core of the Greeks' conception of their plots.

Beginning to Think about Narrative in Poetry

Abstract: My title is frankly presumptuous. To imply that reflection on narrative in poetry begins here and now, with this essay, is to dismiss out of hand a huge body of precedent. Narrative theorists have been thinking deeply about poetic narratives since ancient times. Arguably, there would be no tradition of systematic reflection on narrative at all, at least not in the West, without the Homeric poems, which, from Plato on down to Genette and Sternberg and beyond, have continuously served as touchstones of narrative theory. Many important theoretical developments have hinged on analyses of poetic narratives; for instance, it would be hard to imagine Bakhtin finding his way to a theory of discourse in the novel without the example of Pushkin's Onegin. Nevertheless, presumptuous though it may be, my title does draw attention to a blind spot in contemporary narrative theory. We need to begin thinking about narrative in poetry-or perhaps to resume thinking about it-because we have not been doing so very much lately, and because, whenever we have done so, we have rarely thought about what differentiates narrative in poetry from narrative in other genres or media, namely its poetry component. Contemporary narrative theory is almost silent about poetry. In many classic contemporary monographs on narrative theory, in specialist journals such as the one you are now reading, at scholarly meetings such as the annual conference of the International Society for the Study of Narrative, poetry is conspicuous by its near-absence. Even the indispensable poems, the ones that narrative theory seems unable to do without, tend to be treated as de facto prose fictions; the poetry drops out of the