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Narration in Poetry and Drama

Peter Hhn & Roy Sommer


1 Definition
Narration as a communicative act in which a chain of happenings is
meaningfully structured and transmitted in a particular medium and
from a particular point of view underlies not only narrative fiction
proper but also poems and plays in that they, too, represent temporally
organized sequences and thus relate stories, albeit with certain genre
specific differences, necessarily mediating them in the manner of pres
entation! "yric poetry in the strict sense #and not only obviously narra
tive poetry li$e ballads or verse romances% typically features strings of
primarily mental or psychological happenings perceived through the
consciousness of single spea$ers and articulated from their position!
Drama enacts strings of happenings with actors in live performance,
the presentation of which, though typically devoid of any overt present&
ing agency, is mediated e!g! through selection, segmentation and ar&
rangement! 'han$s to these features characteristic of narrative, lyric
poems as well as plays performed on the stage can be profitably an
alyzed with the transgeneric application of narratological categories,
though with poetry the applicability of the notion of story and with
drama that of mediation seems to be in question!
( )*plication
'ransgeneric narratology proceeds from the assumption that narra&
tology+s highly differentiated system of categories can be applied to the
analysis of both poems and plays, possibly opening the way to a more
precise definition of their respective generic specificity, even though
#lyric% poems do not seem to tell stories and stories in dramas do not
seem to be mediated #but presented directly%! ,s far as poetry is con&
cerned, the following argument concentrates on lyric poetry in the nar&
row sense- that narratological categories are generally applicable to
narrative verse is obvious!
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
.f narration is defined as the representation of chains of happenings
in a medium by a mediating agent, then the three traditional genres,
prose fiction, poetry #/ch0nert (112% and drama, can be differentiated
semiotically by the e*tent to which they utilize the range of possible
modes and levels of mediation # mediacy and narrative mediation%!
3hile novels, short stories, etc! typically ma$e use of all available
levels and modes of mediation #superordinate narrator, subordinate
character+s utterance 45 character6, various modes of 5 focalization%,
lyric and dramatic te*ts can be reconstructed as reduced forms in which
the range of instances of mediation varies in each case! /een in this
way, lyric te*ts in the narrower sense #i!e! not 7ust verse narratives or
ballads% are distinguished by a characteristic variability in the e*tent to
which they use the range of levels and modes of mediation! "i$e prose
narratives, they can instantiate the two fundamental constituents of the
narrative process, temporal sequentiality and mediation, equally well!
/imilarly to the enacted utterances of characters in dramatic te*ts, how&
ever, they can also seemingly efface the narrator+s level and create the
impression of performative immediacy of spea$ing! ,s a result, the
spea$er+s voice is felt to emanate from simultaneously occurring e*pe
rience and speech! 3hat a narratological approach to poetry is able to
provide are a specific method of analyzing the sequential structure as
well as a more precise instrument for differentiating the levels and
modes of mediation in lyric poems #both of which in conventional
manuals of poetry analysis are usually lac$ing%!
.n dramatic te*ts in performance, on the other hand, the sequence of
happenings is presented directly, corporeally, in the form of live char&
acters interacting and communicating on stage, without an overt medi&
ator #such as a 5 narrator% and seemingly without any mediation what&
soever! Nevertheless, selection, segmentation, combination and focus
of the scenes presented imply the e*istence of a superordinate mediat&
ing instance #8ahn (1119 3eidle (11:% or, in other terms, of the ab&
stract author # implied author%! .n addition, narrative elements and
structures do normally occur at the intradiegetic level of the characters+
utterances, but can also be introduced at the e*tradiegetic level, such as
prologues and epilogues and comments by stage managers or overt nar&
rators! , narratological approach to drama can systematically account
for the use of such narrative devices and offer new perspectives on the
relationship between dialogue and stage directions and the status of the
secondary te*t #;luderni$ (11<9 N=nning > /ommer (11<%!
, transgeneric narratology is, however, by no means restricted to
applying narrative theories and terminologies to other genres for anal
ytical purposes! 'his approach may have repercussions on classical
((:
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
narratology itself in that it highlights the need to reconsider current the&
ories of narrative with their traditional focus on narrative fiction by
emphasizing the performative aspects of storytelling, the realization or
transmission of narrative content in different media # narration in
various media%, and the cognitive activities involved in narrative com&
prehension!
? @istory of the Aoncept and its /tudy
?!1 Dimensions of the 'ransgeneric ,pproach to Poetry
'he following survey focuses specifically on lyric rather than on nar&
rative poetry such as ballads, verse narratives or verse romances! 'he
latter lend themselves readily to the concepts generally employed for
prose fiction, albeit with certain differences li$e the added structuring
device of versification #Binney 1::(9 Cc@ale (11D%! , transgeneric
application of narratology to lyric poetry is of relatively recent vintage,
the earliest e*amples dating bac$ only to the 1:<1s! ;or the following
discussion, such approaches will be ordered according to the dimen&
sion#s% of the poem qua narrative te*t to which narratological catego
ries are applied! 'hese basic dimensions are the levels of the happen&
ings and of their mediation in the form of the poetic te*t, in particular
the modality of its mediation and the organization of its sequential
structure, as well as the act and process of articulation!
,ccording to a traditional view, which remains widespread even
today, the generic specificity of lyric poetry as distinct from the epic
and dramatic genres is grounded in its particular form of representation
or mediation- its supposedly unmediated qualityEdirect, unfiltered
communication of e*perience by an author identified with a spea$er as
the sub7ect of this e*perience! .t is this traditional notion of poetic im&
mediate sub7ectivity that several early narratological approaches to lyr&
ic poetry address and try to remedy! Fernhart #1::?- ?GGHG<% draws on
/tanzel+s distinction between dramatized and withdrawn narrators #i!e!
between overt and covert narration% to describe two degrees of the per&
ceptibility of mediation in poetry, the effect of which is either to fore&
ground mediation or to bac$ground the mediator and produce the illu&
sion of immediacy! 'he merit of Fernhart+s argument is its insistence
on the ineluctably mediate quality of poetry and on the e*istence, as in
fiction, of an organizing and shaping consciousness, whether visible or
invisible! Iwing to his adoption of /tanzel+s onedimensional model&
ing of mediacy, however, Fernhart refers merely to the variable per&
ceptibility of the narrator, neglecting other modes of mediating such as
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
the various facets of focalization #e!g! perceptual, psychological or ide
ological%! /eemann #1:<2- D?DH?<%, li$ewise re7ecting the notion of po&
etic immediacy, derives a much more differentiated hierarchy of levels
of mediation from narrative and drama theory! @e distinguishes five
levels of communication- #a% characters9 #b% narratorJspea$er9 #c% im&
plied author9 #d% author as the creator of the wor$ in question9 #e% au&
thor as a biographical person! @e points out that the lowest level, the
utterances of characters, is often unrealized in poetry and that the
highest level, the real author # author%, is usually irrelevant for un&
derstanding a wor$! If particular interest is his distinction between
spea$er and implied author, based on te*tual signals in the composition
of the wor$, opening the way to clearer differentiations in the analysis
of 5 perspective, not only in satiric verse and dramatic monologues,
but more generally, even in cases where these levels appear to collapse
into one another! .n a similar manner, Braan #1::1% distinguishes em&
pirical author, implied author and what he calls lyric sub7ect #with a
certain affinity to the Kerman concept of lyrisches Ich J lyrical .%,
stressing the historical variability in the distinctness of these three me&
diators, e!g! their implicit identity in Lomanticism or clear differentia
tion in modernism #(((H(?%!
/ubsequent and more comprehensive proposals add further specifi
cations to such approaches to modeling mediation in lyric poetry by
drawing more e*tensively on the particularly elaborate inventory of
terms offered by narrative theory! Dismissing conventional views of
the allembracing emotionality and selfcontained artificiality of poetry
that preclude rational analysis, C=llerMettelmann #(11(- 1?1H?1% pro&
grammatically advocates a systematic transfer of the results of narra&
tology to raise the theoretical level both of reflection on poetry and of
poetry criticism #1?:N2<%! ,s for the dimension of mediation, she con&
centrates on one singular aspect of lyric poetry- its generic sub7ectivity
#12(H22%, which she identifies as part of the larger phenomenon of
aesthetic illusion # illusion% and analyzes #drawing on 3olf 1::<%
as the intended effect of various techniques simulating the general po
sitionboundedness of human e*perience as manifest in the spatial,
temporal, cognitive, emotional and ideological restriction of perception
and consciousness! 'his effect of aesthetic illusion, she argues, is fur&
ther heightened by selfreferential artificiality in poems where the
spea$er presents himself as a creative poet! .n Kenette+s terms, this
phenomenon could be classified as the coincidence of spea$er+s voice
with internal focalization and simultaneous narration! Despite her ini&
tial comprehensive claim, C=llerMettelmann refrains from e*ploring
the wide range of poetic mediation with the various possible constella&
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
tions of voice, focalization and time of narration, singling out one spe&
cial albeit significant case- generic sub7ectivity!
, systematic allencompassing application of narratology, differen&
tiating two basic aspects of mediation, agents or instances and levels of
mediation and types of perspective, is outlined by @=hn > /ch0nert
#(11(- (:DN:<% and @=hn #(112- 12OND1%! ;irstly, the four agents lo
cated on four hierarchical levels largely coincide with those named by
/eemann and Braan- biographical author9 abstract #or implied% author9
spea$erJnarrator9 protagonist or character in the happenings! /econdly,
the two types or modes of perspective are voice #a narrator+s or a char&
acter+s verbal utterance, their language% and focalization #the position
that determines perception and cognition, the deictic center of the per&
ceptual, cognitive, psychological and ideological focus on the happen&
ings%! ;or the notoriously tric$y problem of distinguishing spea$er and
abstract author and of relating focalization to agent #e!g! whether to
spea$er or character%, they introduce the operation of attribution per&
formed by the reader in accordance with his particular understanding of
the te*t! 'hese two sets of differential categories, in con7unction with
the operation of attribution, allow for a more precise analysis of lyric
poems in their individual, historical and cultural variations than do tra&
ditional methods! @ence the seemingly unmediated selfe*pression of
the poet in a simultaneously ongoing e*perience characteristic of many
Lomantic poems, for e*ample, can be redescribed as the manipulated
collapse of the agentsJinstances and levels of protagonist, spea$er and
author as well as the contrived congruence of voice and focalization,
thus creating the effect of unmediated sub7ectivity!
'he other dimension of the poetic te*t, sequentiality, has hitherto
been widely neglected in traditional approaches to poetry analysis,
even though it constitutes a central part of a poem+s meaning! ;or the
transgeneric approach to poetry, investigation of this dimension in its
temporal organization is essential, since it forms the basis for the ap&
plication of narratology in the first place! Aontrary to mediation with
the highly differentiated system of relevant categories already devel
oped by narratology, the dimension of sequentiality lac$s a broadly ac&
cepted narratological terminology! Fecause of this, critics are left to
develop categories of their own or to draw on a variety of sources from
elsewhere!
/tillinger #1:<D- :<H:% s$etches five concrete types of plot in Lo&
mantic poetry- conflict between binary forces #mostly of a mental $ind%
and its resolution9 7ourneys or quests9 confrontation between imagina&
tion and reality with resultant disillusionment9 violation and its con&
sequences9 competition between spatial divisions! ;rom these he ab&
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
stracts two general patterns- #a% progress from a state of equilibrium to
disturbance to a final resolution9 #b% encounter of a protagonist+s desire
or goal with resistance and its resolution! 'his is an early and rudi&
mentary attempt, loosely inspired by action models applied to prose
fiction #Propp, Fremond%, in need of further refinement and adaptation!
3eststei7n #1:<:%, in another early proposal, advocates application of
the concept of plot to lyric poems and provides a demonstration, high&
lighting two features specific to poetry- the preference for mental ac&
tions and the omission #deliberate or not% of the social, spatial and tem&
poral particulars of situation, character and action! C=llerMettelmann
#(11(- 1??H?D%, in a programmatic plea for the general transfer of nar&
ratological categories to poetry analysis, also mentions these two fea&
tures, but without further specification, merely referring to the appli
cability of frame #or schema% theory #12:HD1%! 'his same concept was
earlier proposed by /emino #1::D% as a practical instrument for the de&
tailed analysis of poetry, without, however, lin$ing it to narrative!
/chema theory, derived from cognitive psychology, e*plains the read
er+s comprehension of te*ts as an operation of activating and applying
relevant prior $nowledge! ,ccording to this theory, $nowledge is
shown to be organized into patterns called schemata- fle*ible and dy&
namic structures which te*ts may confirm or modify in the course of
schema reinforcement and schema refreshment respectively #<DH
O%! 'he concept of schema facilitates precise description of the sequen&
tial dimension of poetic te*ts!
, systematic approach to modeling sequentiality combining schema
theory with "otman+s concept of sujet #in the sense of transgression of
a boundary or deviation from a norm% is put forward by @=hn >
/ch0nert #(11(%, @=hn #(112, (11D% and @=hn > Biefer #(11D%! 'he
notion of cognitive schemata, especially in the further distinction
between frames #stereotypical $nowledge about settings, situations and
themes% and scripts #$nowledge about stereotyped series of actions and
processes%, allows for differentiated analysis of the sequential structure
of poems and their thematic significance with direct reference to the
cultural, social and historical conte*t, since such 5 schemata are al&
ways formed by and dependent on e*perience within a particular socie
ty and culture! Fecause of the poetic convention of brevity, abstract&
ness and situational and personal indeterminacy, poems are usually less
circumstantial than prose fiction in presenting te*tual triggers for acti
vating frames and scripts, thus requiring greater effort on the reader+s
part to infer the relevant schemata! Aombining schema theory with "ot&
man+s model provides a means for identifying the turning point in a
poem, a decisive or merely inferable change from one state #attitude,
(??
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
view, emotion, etc!% to another signaled by deviation from the conven&
tional and predictable pattern of one or more schemata which consti&
tutes the point of the te*t, its raison dtre #5 tellability%! )vents are
ascribed to a figure, an agent who undergoes a decisive change! ,c&
cording to the level of the poetic te*t at which the figure is located and
at which the decisive turn ta$es place, three basic event types or planes
of eventfulness can be distinguished #@=hn > Biefer (11D- O, (2GHD1%-
#a% events in the happenings, ascribed to storyworld incidents with
the protagonist or persona as agent9 #b% presentation events, located
at the discourse level with the spea$erJnarrator as agent enacting a
story of narration9 in addition, mediation events can be mar$ed off
as e*ceptional variants of the presentation event in cases where the de&
cisive change is brought about by a shift in the manner of mediation,
e!g! by modification or replacement of schemata, attributable not to the
spea$er but to the abstract author #as when the spea$er+s lament about
his artistic sterility is mediated in the form of a perfect poem%9 #c% re&
ception events, which ta$e place during the reading process with the
reader as agent in cases when neither the protagonist nor the spea$er is
willing or able to undergo a #necessary or desirable% change, an event
the reader is meant to perform vicariously, as in dramatic monologues
#5 event and eventfulness%!
,nalysis of poetry in )nglish #@=hn (11D- 1GOHG<9 @=hn > Biefer
(11D- (??H?D% and in Kerman #/ch0nert et al! (11O- ?11H1?% bears out
a number of characteristic tendencies in which narration in lyric poems
seems to differ from that in novels and stories! 'o name 7ust one such
tendency, there is a preference #in certain periods% for stories in which
simultaneous narration aspires to merge with the presentation event-
the spea$er+s process of reflection and articulation is performed in the
present, while moving toward a decisive turn in his attitude or insight!
'his presentation event is achieved at the very end of the poem or,
more characteristically, the poem brea$s off before it is achieved, the
change being too difficult to bring about or shied away from because of
the ris$s involved! 'o negotiate this problematic transition, the spea$er
often narrates the further movement prospectively!
.n conclusion, the claim formulated in some programmatic state&
ments that the transfer of narratological concepts to poetry will contrib&
ute to a differentiated theory of poetry #C=llerMettelmann (111- 29
@=hn > /ch0nert (11(- (<OH<<% has yet to bear its full fruit! )ven so,
this transgeneric thrust is already enriching the analysis of poetry and
facilitating investigation of the specific relations between poems and
their cultural and historical conte*ts!
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
?!( Dimensions of the 'ransgeneric ,pproach to Drama
Cost categories commonly used for the analysis of narrative fiction
can equally be applied to drama, as Lichardson #(11O- 12(HD1% argues
convincingly! 'his is valid for representations of character, plot, begin&
nings and endings, time and space as well as for fictional causality
#defined by Lichardson as the canon of probability 41D16 to which
plays and novels adhere%, narrative framing and narration! 3hereas
plot, beginnings and endings and character also belong to the tradition&
al categories of drama criticism, the relevance of concepts of narrative
mediation and their applicability in a transgeneric conte*t is currently
under debate!
Narratological approaches to drama routinely focus on choric
speeches, prologues and messengers, onstage audiences and commen
tators, instances of character narration and of epic narrators such as the
stage manager in 3ilder+s Our Ton, on frame narratives and embed&
ded narratives, monologues, soliloquies, asides, audience address, self
reflective or metadramatic comments, instances of 5 metalepsis as
well as on selfreferential techniques such as the playwithintheplay!
Lecent research also suggests a distinction between mimetic and die&
getic 5 narrativity #N=nning > /ommer (11<- ??OH?:% and combines
the analysis of narration in drama with performative approaches to the
study of discourse in narrative fiction #;luderni$ (11<- ?GOHG:%!
@istorically, there has been a tendency in drama criticism to regard
epic elements and violation of the ,ristotelian unities which frequently
went along with them as undramatic and to consider them merely as
a way to overcome the technical limitations of stage design #Delius
1<OO%! 'his view was challenged radically by (1
th
century playwrights
such as Fec$ett and, of course, Frecht+s programmatic use of alienating
techniquesPfrequently narrative or metadramatic in naturePwhich
defined his internationally acclaimed notion of an epic theater!
'hroughout the (1
th
century, narrative e*periments in drama have con&
tributed to the emergence of a canon of plays #including Frecht+s
!aucasian !hal" !ircle, 3illiams+s The #lass $ena%erie and /haf&
fer+s &madeus% routinely quoted in narratological accounts of drama!
'he development of drama and theater in the second half of the (1
th
century, however, should not be reduced to an increased awareness of
its narrativity or to selfreflective games with narrative and dramatic
conventions- there is a broad variety of new developments including
improvised forms of performance, the fusion of theater with other
genres, media and technologies, and the emergence of a postdramat
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
ic theater which abandons conventional storybased and characterori&
ented dramaturgy #"ehmann 1:::%!
'he frequent occurrence of narrative or epic elements in performed
or presented narratives #theater or film% led Ahatman #1::1% to question
the strict separation of mimesis and diegesis favored by Kenette! .n&
stead of identifying the former with showing and preserving the latter
for the ver'al mediation of narrative content, Ahatman points to the
fact that both modes #showing and telling% can be used to transmit a
story! 'hus, a narrator might present a story through a teller or a
shower or some combination of both #11?%! .n order to avoid termino&
logical confusion, Ahatman suggests the new umbrella term pre
senter to designate his broader conception of narrator which subsumes
both the narrator in Kenette+s narrower sense of verbal narration by an&
thropomorphic narrating instances #a notion compatible with /tanzel+s
definition of mediacy as the sine qua non of fictional narration%, on the
one hand, and a $ind of narration that is not performed by a recogniz&
ably human agency #11D%, on the other! 'he latter type of narrator may
be said to tell #or show or present% the ma7ority of enacted sto
ries on stage and screen! Ahatman+s main argument in favor of his ap&
proach #besides terminological clarity% is theoretical consistency-
Ince we define narrative as the composite of story and discourse #on
the basis of its unique double chronology%, then lo%ically, at least, nar&
ratives can be said to be actualizable on the stage or in other iconic me&
dia #112%!
'his idea is further developed by 8ahn #(111%, who emphasizes the
diegetic nature of stage directions and compares the multiple levels of
communication within dramatic te*ts with narrative embedding in the
novel! @e also modifies Ahatman+s ta*onomy of te*t types #1::1- 11D%
by introducing a playscript mode #to which he assigns all utterances
belonging to the secondary te*t% and by replacing Ahatman+s subdi&
vision of diegetic and mimetic with the distinction between writ&
tenJprinted and performed narratives! Core recently, N=nning >
/ommer #(11<% have argued that plays ma$e acts of #intradiegetic%
storytelling theatrical by representing acts of character narration, lead&
ing them to propose a distinction between different degrees of diegetic
narrativity in narratives that e*tend across the traditional generic
boundaries #thus a memory play may have a high degree of diegetic
narrativity, while modernist novels preoccupied with the representation
of consciousness and processes of perception may be said to have a
low degree of either mimetic or diegetic narrativity%! ,nother direction
is ta$en by ;luderni$ #(11<%, whose notion of e*perientiality paves the
way for a cognitive narratological approach to drama! /he revises the
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
standard narratological model of communication in fictional narrative
#based on the distinction between story level and discourse level% by
adding a third level, corresponding to performance or enactment in or&
der to highlight the specific circumstances in which storytelling occurs-
.n drama, there is a real performance involving actors9 in a perform&
ance of narrative, the performer and audience Qta$e over+ the roles of
narrator and narratee! 3hat the model allows one to argue is that in
drama, the narratorial level is optional and the performative level is
constitutive, whereas in epic narrative, it is the performance level that
is optional #?GD%!
3hereas narratologists from Ahatman and Lichardson to 8ahn and
;luderni$ have repeatedly emphasized the narrativity of drama from a
variety of perspectives, there are also critical voices re7ecting the idea
of a narratology of drama #or at least parts of it%! Leferring to /tanzel+s
notion of mediacy, La7ews$y #(11O- D<% insists on the distinction
between narrative communication in the novel and nonmediated com&
munication in drama, thus e*cluding the possibility of heterodiegetic
narration on the stage #where, she argues, discourse is always produced
by participants of the storyworld%! 'his view is supported by /chen$
@aupt #(11O- ?1%, who maintains that e*tradiegetic narration is im&
possible in dramatic writing!
Proponents of a narratology of drama, however, generally agree that
both Kenette+s notion of diegetic narration as a verbal transmission of
narrative content and /tanzel+s insistence on mediacy as a prerequisite
of narrative are too restrictive, proceeding, as they do, from the norma
tive assumption #based on normative genre theory% that there is no nar&
rative discourse in drama! 'here are several more recent #and more
convincing% alternatives to Kenette+s and /tanzel+s definitions of nar&
rative available, including Ahatman+s revision of Kenette+s concept and
8ahn+s subsequent modification of Ahatman, Lyan+s transgeneric and
transmedial definitions of narrative as a cognitive template #Lyan
(11D9 N=nning > /ommer (11<- ???%, or ;luderni$+s natural narra&
tology, based on her definitions of narrativity and e*perientiality!
'herefore, attempts to prove transgeneric narratology wrong by point&
ing out its incompatibility with Kenette #/chen$@aupt (11O- ?1H(% or
/tanzel #La7ews$y (11O- D<% can hardly be convincing! /chen$
@aupt+s conclusion that there is no direct e*tradiegetic communica&
tion in dramatic writingPauthorial characters, embedded stories, epic
devices, and the quir$y e*pansion of stage directions merely create the
aesthetic illusion of an e*tradiegetic agent spea$ing #(11O- ?O% is val&
id for all narratological concepts- they all refer to effects produced by
verbal, visual or auditive signs!
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
La7ews$y #(11O% further suggests that a transgeneric and transmedi&
al narratology should not try to level the differences between the vari&
ous media in which stories can be transmitted! ;or this reason, she re&
7ects 8ahn+s argument that unperformable, unrealizable stage directions
can be regarded as evidence of a heterodiegetic narrating instance-
since they cannot be performed, they highlight generic conventions and
emphasize the distinctions between narrative fiction and narrative
drama which transgeneric narratology see$s to overcome #G1%! /chen$
@aupt #(11O% offers a similar argument- .f we accepted that !!! the
secondary te*t too$ over a narrative, mediating function, this would
eventually lead to a confusion of generic boundaries #?G%! 'he dis&
agreement seems to be partly due to the fact that the discussion of the
relationship between primary and secondary te*t is merged with the
te*t vs! performance debate andJor with generic issues!
Rltimately, the e*istence #or absence% of a narrating instance in
drama is a matter of perspective- it depends both on the critic+s chosen
theoretical framewor$ #KenetteJ/tanzel vs! AhatmanJ8ahnJLyanJ;lu
derni$% and on his or her main research interests #narrative vs! gen
resJmedia%! ,dmittedly, narratology sometimes tends to produce coun
terintuitive concepts, and a play+s superordinate narrative agent
#8ahn (111- GO(% or superordinate narrative system #3eidle (11:%
may easily fall into that category for critics more concerned with per&
formance and performativity! 'ransgeneric narratology is still in its in&
fancy, however, and if the current cognitive approaches are pursued
further, a truly transmedial and interdisciplinary theory of storytelling
and narrative comprehension might be developed which would not only
help to solve some of the problems in classical genre theory, but also
allow for a better understanding of the anthropological function of nar&
rative in literary and in nonliterary discourses!
2 'opics for ;urther .nvestigation
2!1 'opics for ;urther .nvestigation- Poetry
'he relation of the various event types with different historical epochs
and with different cultures and cultural traditions9 comparison between
poetry and prose fiction in their various genres with respect to the
schemata used, event types and the degree of realization of events!
(?<
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
2!( 'opics for ;urther .nvestigation- Drama
'he compatibility or mutual dependency of transgeneric and transmedi&
al theories of narrative9 a comparative discussion of diegetic narrativity
in dramas, play te*ts and performances9 a revision of structuralist nar&
ratological approaches to drama from a cognitive and pragmaticJse&
mantic perspective!
D Fibliography
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(?:
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
/tillinger, 8ac$ #1:<D%! 'he Plots of Lomantic Poetry! !olle%e 1iterature 1(, :DH11(!
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(21
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Narration in Poetry and Drama
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(21
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