Handbook of Narratology

Narratologia
Contributions to Narrative Theory

Edited by
Fotis Jannidis, Matı́as Martı́nez, John Pier
Wolf Schmid (executive editor)

Editorial Board
Catherine Emmott, Monika Fludernik
José Ángel Garcı́a Landa, Peter Hühn, Manfred Jahn
Andreas Kablitz, Uri Margolin, Jan Christoph Meister
Ansgar Nünning, Marie-Laure Ryan
Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Michael Scheffel
Sabine Schlickers, Jörg Schönert

19

≥
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
Handbook of Narratology

Edited by
Peter Hühn, John Pier
Wolf Schmid, Jörg Schönert

≥
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
 앪
앝 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines
of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Handbook of narratology / edited by Peter Hühn … [et al.].

p. cm. ⫺ (Narratologia)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-11-018947-6 (alk. paper)
1. Discourse analysis, Narrative. 2. Narration (Rhetoric)
I. Hühn, Peter, 1939⫺
P302.7H34 2009
808⫺dc22
2009026536

ISBN 978-3-11-018947-6
ISSN 1612-8427

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet
at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

쑔 Copyright 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, 10785 Berlin
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this
book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ-
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Printed in Germany
Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Laufen
Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
 Contents

Preface ...................................................................................... IX

Author ....................................................................................... 1
Jörg Schönert

Character .................................................................................. 14
Fotis Jannidis

Cognitive Narratology .............................................................. 30

David Herman

Coherence ................................................................................. 44
Michael Toolan

Conversational Narration/Oral Narration ................................. 63

Monika Fludernik

Dialogism ................................................................................. 74
David Shepherd

Event and Eventfulness ............................................................. 80

Peter Hühn

Fictional vs. Factual Narration ................................................. 98

Jean-Marie Schaeffer

Focalization .............................................................................. 115

Burkhard Niederhoff

Heteroglossia ............................................................................ 124

Valerij Tjupa
VI Contents

Identity and Narration ............................................................... 132

Michael Bamberg

Illusion (Aesthetic) ................................................................... 144

Werner Wolf

Implied Author ......................................................................... 161

Wolf Schmid

Mediacy and Narrative Mediation ............................................ 174

Jan Alber & Monika Fludernik

Metalepsis ................................................................................. 190

John Pier

Metanarration and Metafiction ................................................. 204

Birgit Neumann & Ansgar Nünning

Narration in Film ...................................................................... 212

Johann N. Schmidt

Narration in Poetry and Drama ................................................. 228

Peter Hühn & Roy Sommer

Narration in Various Disciplines .............................................. 242

Norbert Meuter

Narration in Various Media ...................................................... 263

Marie-Laure Ryan

Narrative Constitution .............................................................. 282

Michael Scheffel

Narrative Levels ....................................................................... 295

Didier Coste & John Pier

Narrativity ................................................................................ 309

H. Porter Abbottt

Narratology ............................................................................... 329

Jan Christoph Meister
 Contents VII

Narrator .................................................................................... 351

Uri Margolin

Performativity ........................................................................... 370

Ute Berns

Perspective/Point of View ........................................................ 384

Burkhard Niederhoff

Reader ....................................................................................... 398

Gerald Prince

Schemata .................................................................................. 411

Catherine Emmott & Marc Alexander

Space ........................................................................................ 420

Marie-Laure Ryan

Speech Representation .............................................................. 434

Brian McHale

Tellability ................................................................................. 447

Raphaël Baroni

Index: Terms and Concepts ...................................................... 455

Index: Names ............................................................................ 459

 Preface

Over the last few decades, the field of narrative studies has been vastly
expanded by a wide spectrum of original studies in the philologies and
other disciplines including linguistics, history, theology, art history or
psychology, and it has also seen a growing number of attempts to sur­
vey, order, and summarize the results of such studies in the form of col­
lections of essays, encyclopedias, companions, dictionaries, etc.
Against this background, the present Handbook of Narratology of­
fers a new type of systematic in-depth overview of recent and older re­
search, taking into account different disciplinary and national traditions
in narrative study. The 32 entries present international research regard­
ing the key terms, categories, and concepts of narratology in the form
of full-length original articles structured in a parallel manner: each
entry starts with a concise definition followed by a more detailed ex­
plication of the term in question and then proceeds, in its main part, to
provide a differentiated description and critical discussion of the vari­
ous approaches, positions, and controversies in their historical develop­
ment, concluding with topics for further research and a select biblio­
graphy. All entries are cross-referenced. They vary in length in accord­
ance with the complexity of the respective concepts.
The Handbook will subsequently be made available as an open-
access Living Handbook on the Internet by Hamburg University Press.
The articles will be updated and new articles made available at regular
intervals, both in the printed and in the online versions.
This handbook grew out of the work of the Narratology Research
Group at Hamburg University (2001−2007) and the Interdisciplinary
Center for Narratology (founded in 2007).
We thank Wilhelm Schernus for his expert subediting of the indi­
vidual articles and Stephanie Neu for her helpful organizational sup­
port.

Hamburg and Paris Peter Hühn

June 2009 John Pier
Wolf Schmid
Jörg Schönert
 Author
Jörg Schönert

1 Definition

The author (real or empirical) can be defined in a narrow sense as the

intellectual creator of a text written for communicative purposes. In
written texts in particular, the real author is distinguished from the me­
diating instances internal to the text (cf. 2.1) (→ mediacy and narrative
mediation). Beyond linguistically created works, the term author is also
used for works in other media such as music and the visual arts as well
as for comics, photography, film, radio and television programs, and
computer games.
A broader understanding of the term author is used in the following
contexts, among others: as conveyor of action in a socio-cultural con­
text (cf. 2.3); in the sense of specific cultural-historically relevant con­
ceptions of authorship; as a unifying instance in the interrelation of
works (œuvre); as a reference for classification in terms of epoch and
canon; and as an important point of reference for the meanings ascribed
to works through which the recipient can determine the author’s inten­
tion and/or author-related contexts relevant to understanding a work
(cf. 2.2).

2 Explication

During the 20th century, a broad spectrum of how the author is under­
stood was developed in scholarly circles: for framing concrete contexts
(e.g. “producer of cultural goods”); for abstract author functions (e.g.
causa efficiens); for concepts of the author relevant for understanding
such as the → implied author. Unlike the dominant tendencies in the
intensive discussions conducted since 1990 on the status and under­
standing of the author, this analysis will focus on the author’s narra­
tological relevance.
2 Author

2.1 Communicative Instances in Narrative Representations

As in other domains, it holds for narratological analysis that the real

author is held responsible for the communicative intention and form of
a narratively organized work (on the roles of the author in literary com­
munication, see Okopień-Sławińska 1971; Fieguth 1975). In the case of
narrative fictions, it has proved useful to assume that mediacy is trans­
ferred to text-internal instances (“voice”) including the → narrator to
various degrees of explicitness and, possibly, → characters in the
storyworld. To these there correspond addressee instances such as the
narratee (→ reader) or figured addressees, respectively. The arrange­
ments of autofiction (within literary autobiography, e.g.) constitute a
special case.

2.2 Authorship and Reception of the Work

Authorship is to be seen as a status attributed to a work with culturally

differing author constructs bound up with authorial self-reflection and
self-presentation in a spectrum ranging from self-assurance to skepti­
cism as to the validity and scope of claims to authorship. In the sphere
of (fictional) literature, constructs such as the author as vates, poeta
doctus, creative genius or “writer” can be found. Independent of such
typologizing expressions, particular author constructs also hold good
for the reception of works in specific periods (e.g. the image of Milton
during the Romantic period). These types of construction can refer to
the totality of an author’s work (cf. œuvre author or career author—
Booth 1977: 11) or to representative individual works.
Since the 18th century, there has been a culturally significant need to
fall back on the author for interpretative processes and value judgments
of an artistic work based on the creative act, authenticity, individuality,
originality, unity of the work and its depth of meaning. From this per­
spective, the definition of “authoralism” in Benedetti’s sense (1999: 8–
12) is based on the experience that in the modern era it is “impossible
for a work of art to exist except as a product of an author” (10)—as
“being authored” (74–8). A culturally (and legally) important result of
this is that the authenticity of a work is attested with reference to the
real author as its originator, which is significant, for instance, in the
editing of texts (cf. Bohnenkamp 2002).
An author-related reception focuses on the intention, attributed to
the author, to convey a particular understanding of his work. In this
sense, the work can also be seen as an expression of the author’s per­
sonality (including his feelings, opinions, knowledge and values). In
particular, differing conceptions of author and authorship determine,
 Author 3

alongside the concerns of historiographic, classificatory and editorial

practices, ascription of meaning to literary texts within scholarly (cf.
Spoerhase 2007) and non-scholarly circles as a result of biographical
reference to the author, e.g., or with reference to the author’s intention,
reconstructed in a largely hermeneutic manner. In practical criticism,
inclusion of the author as a category for textual interpretation is accept-
ed (cf. Jannidis et al. eds. 1999: 22–4), this approach often being adopt-
ed in the “author-critical” problematics of literary theory and method-
ology (Jannidis 2000: 8; Winko 2002).
An alternative concept is marked by the term “author function”: the
author as an individual person is held to be external to his work—as is
maintained by Foucault, for example—so that in the reception of the
work, he can be ignored as a reference point for the ascription of mean­
ing. In a way that varies historically and culturally, the author is inte-
grated into (discursively ordered) functional contexts, such as proprie-
tary or legal concerns, or into classifications of cultural communica­
tion. The resulting author functions are thus not to be related to con­
crete individuals, but rather assigned, for example, to discourses or to
intertextual constellations.

2.3 Author as a Social Role

Creatorship gives rise to certain consequences in a social context such

as legal implications regarding a claim to intellectual property (copy­
right) or the author’s legal responsibility for the effects of his work.
These and other aspects (e.g. origin, education, patronage, market and
media dependency, author-publisher relationships, royalties and hon­
ors, author groups and interest groups) are the concerns of the social
history of the author, broken down into subsections such as the history
of producers and distributors (cf. Jäger 1992; Haynes 2005; Parr 2008).

2.3.1 Collaborative as well as Anonymous, Pseudonymous and

Fictitious Authorship
Author collectives (with at least two partners) can be found in various
combinations of media (cf. Detering ed. 2002: 258–309; for belles
lettres, cf. Plachta ed. 2001). During Antiquity and in the Middle Ages,
e.g., texts were produced, over and above those created by an author
through transcriptions, additions, commentaries and compilations
which were attributable to more than one author. Since the late 18th
century, popular prose fiction has often been written by anonymous or
pseudonymous groups of authors and highbrow literature by authors in
cooperation, usually declared. New possibilities have arisen thanks to
4 Author

electronically stored, collectively produced hypertexts published on

CD-ROM and/or online (cf. Landow ed. 1994; Simanowski 2001; Ryan
2006). Collective authorship specific to the medium is the rule in mu­
sical theater, cinema (cf. Kamp 1996) and television.
Numerous historical and cultural variants can be found for anonym­
ous, pseudonymous and fictitious authorship (cf. Schaff 2002); until
well into the 20th century, these practices were often resorted to in lit-
erary publications by women authors.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

The following (European) overview focuses on the author as the cre-

ator of literary texts, and in particular of narrative fiction.
Since Antiquity, terminological ambiguity in the concept of author
and competing concepts of author and authorship have been apparent
(cf. Burke ed. 1995; Jannidis et al. eds. 1999: 4–11), as witnessed, e.g.,
in the variously defined conceptions of the heteronomy and autonomy
of the author. The underlying tendency from Antiquity to the modern
era can be described as a shift from an instrumental-performative un­
derstanding of authorship to personalization characterized by creative
individuality (cf. Wetzel 2000: 480).
Author as a neutral term alongside scriptor/writer first began to
dominate after the end of the 18th century in the context of an economic
and legal situation specific to the period and as a neutralizing claim set
up to counter the emphatic understanding of “poet.” The word “author”
has developed into an umbrella term and now denotes all forms of cre­
atorship for a work in the context of public communication.

3.1 Antiquity

Author in the literal sense is of Roman origin (auctor), and has no

Greek equivalent. However, Plato had already devised for poetic pro­
ductivity the concept of a speech guided by “enthusiasm” (literally
“possessed by God”), to which the later model of the poet pleading for
(divine) inspiration as well as the poeta vates can be assigned. Along­
side the dominant idea of the production of poetic works by means of
inspiration, a further author model was formulated in the poietes
(“maker”; Lat. poeta faber) favored in Aristotle’s Poetics: poetic works
are created out of techne, i.e. craftsmanship and technical skill (Lat.
ars) (cf. Kleinschmidt 1998: 14–34).
New ways of conceiving of the production of poetic works arose as
a result of the complex of meanings surrounding the term auctor in the
 Author 5

ancient Roman legal system: an auctor is the bearer of auctoritas (cf.

Heinze 1925) who enjoys particular rights and/or who can transfer (and
thus authorize) these rights in order to promote something or achieve
some goal. This “authority” was founded on, and confirmed by, the
special knowledge available to the auctor. In this respect, the author
model of the poeta faber was upgraded to the poeta eruditus or poeta
doctus.

3.2 Middle Ages

Use of the Latin term auctor (Eng. author; Ital. autore; Fr. auteur;
Span. autor; Ger. Autor) was extended to cover the creatorship of fac­
tual and fictional texts. In general, it was only from the late 15th century
onwards that scholars and occasionally poets were referred to as
auctores, a practice that continued up to the early decades of the 18th
century. Viewed from a cultural-historical perspective, the classical
model of the poeta vates was re-interpreted as an extension into the
sphere of knowledge of the promises and teachings of Christianity so
that where this commitment was supplemented by poetological knowl-
edge, the result was to link up the author model with the poeta doctus.
In contrast to scientific texts, literary texts in the broader sense (as
in epics or in the Minnesang) were often handed down without the cre­
ator being named, so that individual or collective anonymity prevailed.
Little distinction was made between the creators, copyists, editors,
commentators and compilers of texts in favor of “original” creatorship
in need of protection (cf. Minnis 1984), with far more emphasis being
placed on group identity: e.g.—depending on the type of text—in the
imitatio veterum (supported by the canon that provided a model) or—
when mediacy-oriented—in the case of collective manuscripts.

3.3 Early Modern Period

With the invention of the printing press, a public sphere based on writ­
ten language was established for which, both in the dominant scholarly
literature and in the diversified sphere of belles lettres, the individual­
ity of the author as well as the authenticity of the single work and reli­
able copies (guaranteed by printing) gained progressively in impor-
tance. In literature, the author model of the poeta eruditus and the po­
eta doctus dominated starting from the time of Humanism. For these
texts, “interpretation” was not the appropriate form of analysis, but
“commentary,” relating the text to previous sources backed up with
“authority” (cf. Scholz 1999: 347–50). Also revived was the model of
the poet moved by inspiration, sometimes in the sense of an alter deus
6 Author

(cf. Scholz 1999). Initially, creatorship remained legally undefined. It

was not until the turn of the 18th century that the first contractual ar­
rangements between publishers and authors were devised concerning
royalties, etc.

3.4 Early 18th Century until the Mid-20th Century

As a result of varying national cultural developments in Europe, the au­

thor developed into a legal instance in the course of the 18th century,
acquiring material entitlements vis-à-vis publishers, requiring protec­
tion against unauthorized reprints and plagiarism, and bearing personal
responsibility for the content of his publications (e.g. Bosse 1981;
Hesse 1991; Jaszi & Woodmansee eds. 1994). With the development of
the objective conditions linked to creating factual and fictional texts for
market-led public communication, the term author became a value-free
collective name to which professional designations such as writer
(Skribent, Schriftsteller, écrivain, etc.) as well as evaluative classifica­
tions such as poet/Dichter could be assigned. A broad spectrum of pat­
terns of individual and collective authorship developed (cf. Haynes
2005: 302–10) for the social roles that arose from these concrete author
models, and they were often accompanied by the authors’ reflections
on their self-perception (cf. Selbmann 1994).
Additional criteria for artistic production regarding creativity and
originality (genius) became important for the understanding of the au­
thor as poet/Dichter from the final third of the 18th century onwards.
Thus, the author could be defined legally, materially and intellectually
(cf. Haynes 2005: 310–13). In emphatic formulations such as “art as re­
ligion,” the life experiences, conceptions of style and work of the (god­
like) poet were bound together into a whole and endowed with a spe­
cial aura (cf. Bénichou 1973). In this process, narrative prose was en­
hanced with a literary status in the course of the 18 th century and was
put on an equal footing with the “classical” genres of drama, epic, and
verse as a poetic art.
New facets of the concept of author emerged from scholarly en­
gagement with works of the poetic art, their theory and history which
got underway after 1820 (cf. Jannidis et al. eds. 1999: 9–11). The au­
thor together with the story of his life and work became a reference
point for expert textual analysis (biographical criticism), scholarly edi­
tions, literary-historical (re)constructions and evaluations for establish­
ing the canon with practical cultural consequences, particularly for
education and teaching. Toward the end of the 19 th century, methodo-
logical debates emerged which, in different ways, fell back on the au­
 Author 7

thor as an interpretative norm for ascribing meaning, above all in the

scholarly handling of texts. In this process, plausibility was legitimized
in a variety of ways on the basis for example of: (a) the author’s as­
certainable intention (cf. Hirsch 1967); (b) extensions of the intentional
aspect through a critique of psychoanalytical or ideological assump­
tions to meanings of literary texts beyond the author’s intention: “to
understand the author better than he understood himself” (Strube
1999); (c) the author-oriented selection of relevant contexts.
Approaches to ascribing meaning to texts in scholarly circles were
developed in competition with these concepts from the early 20 th cen­
tury onwards, based on the assumption that all information relevant to
meaning could be drawn from the text in question alone (cf. close read­
ing, New Criticism, werkimmanente Interpretation, explication de
texte, formalist, structuralist and text-semiotic approaches). In support
of such approaches, criticism remained wary of the “intentional fal­
lacy” (cf. Wimsatt & Beardsley 1946), emphasizing the irrelevance of
the real author’s intention for scholarly interpretation.
It was in this context that categorial distinctions between the real
author and speaker instances internal to the text (cf. narrator, lyrical I),
advocated since the beginning of the 20th century (cf. Friedemann
1910; Susman 1910) and accepted in the 1950s, gained in importance.
As a textual instance located above other instances and differentiated
from the real author (also as a reference point for text immanent inter­
pretations of works), the “implied author” was brought into the discus­
sion by Booth in 1961 even though, in the following decades, it was of­
ten called into question as “not absolutely necessary” (cf. Kindt &
Müller 2006); complementary to the “implied author” is the “implied
reader.”

3.5 Since the Mid-20th Century

In this phase, both author-centric and author-critical approaches to tex­

tual interpretation have been further clarified in scholarly debates on
literary theory, and the resulting competition between them was inten-
sified. Hence, the intentio operis or the intentio lectoris (Eco 1990),
e.g., was placed in opposition to the interpretative norm of the intentio
auctoris. For ascribing meaning to a text put at a remove from the au­
thor’s creative process as a result of publication, decisive emphasis is
placed on the activity of the “implied reader” constructed during the
reading process, or the real reader. This position is taken up in various
ways in the concepts developed by empirical literary criticism (cf.
Schmidt 1982) and by → cognitive narratology.
8 Author

The concept of écriture automatique, developed by the French Sur­

realists during the 1920s, was then added to the critique of the assump­
tion that a work is authentic and autonomous, the author being under­
stood merely as the executing instance (cf. Barthes 1968) of the
autonomously productive literary language. In a further step, the
boundaries of the author-oriented work were cancelled out in intertex­
tual constellations (cf. Kristeva 1969) and in “discourse” (Foucault
1969), and the author function superseded the person of the author (au­
thor as “intertextual construction,” as “discourse function”): with a
Nietzschean gesture, Barthes and Foucault announced the “death of the
author” (cf. Burke ed. 1995). The debate on the curtailed potency of
authorship was carried on through the concepts of poststructuralism
and the New Philology. The broader the medial spectrum for commu­
nication with text and with representations analogous to text grew dur­
ing the second half of the 20th century, the greater the interest in the
contribution of the material conditions of production and communica­
tion to the ascription of meaning became: authorship is now often con­
ceived of as arrangement, montage, bricolage and remix (Wetzel 2000:
486, 491–92). Complex constructions of authorship are assigned to
cinematic works (cf. Chatman 1990), while specific author concepts for
the theory and reception of the products of the so-called new media,
such as in hypertexts and cybertexts, are still being disputed (cf. Winko
1999).
In contrast to these positions, a multi-faceted debate, extending be-
yond the methodological problems of textual interpretation, got under­
way in around 1990 in which restitution of various aspects of the au­
thor was advocated (e.g. Biriotti & Miller eds. 1993; Jaszi & Wood­
mansee eds. 1994; Couturier 1995; Ingold & Wunderlich eds. 1992;
Jannidis et al. eds. 1999; Detering ed. 2002). The debate took place
with reference to the problematic relevance of origin, biography and
types of experience to the processes of writing and forms of expression
in concepts of gender studies (e.g. Walker 1990; Hahn 1991; Lanser
1992; Haynes 2005: 299–302) and those of postcolonial studies. In­
terest in the circumstances of authorial creativity and its scholarly in­
vestigation has intensified (cf. Ingold 1992); and still unabated is the
commitment, developed since the 1920s by the sociology of literature
and, since the 1970s, by the social history of literature as well as by
cultural materialism, to investigation of the social role of the author
and of the social institutions and processes that affect his work (cf.
Wolf 2002: 395–99; Haynes 2005: 291).
 Author 9

4 Topics for Further Investigation

Questions to be pursued from a narratological perspective concern

primarily the interpretation of literary texts (cf. Jannidis 2000): is the
ascription of meaning with reference to aspects of the real author theo-
retically legitimate and fruitful practically speaking? Which of the six
empirically determined author-oriented interpretative strategies pro­
posed by Winko (2002) are absolutely necessary, and to what extent
can they be hierarchically ordered? At the same time, are references to
the real author conceivable other than in the orientation of ascribed
meanings toward the author’s intention, such as the author-oriented se­
lection of relevant contexts for textual interpretation? Must reference
to the author’s intention represent an alternative to the implied author,
or can author’s intention and implied author complement one another
in the ascription of meaning (cf. Kindt & Müller 2006)? Should refer­
ence to the real and/or implied author in any way constrain the random­
ness of meaning/significances ascribed through reader activity? In the
ascription of meaning to texts, which characteristic relations can be
identified for the reader’s construction of the real author, the implied
author and the narrative instance (cf. narrator)? Is the implied author a
meaningful analytical category only for literary texts, or also for jour-
nalistic and historiographical texts?

(Translated by Alexander Starritt)

5 Bibliography

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10 Author

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spektiven. Konstanz: Universitäts-Verlag.
Jäger, Georg (1992). “Autor.” V. Meid (ed). Literaturlexikon. Begriffe, Realien, Me­
thoden. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 66–72.
Jannidis, Fotis (2000). “Autor und Interpretation. Einleitung.” F. J. et al. (eds). Texte
zur Theorie der Autorschaft. Stuttgart: Reclam, 7–29.
– et al. eds. (1999). Rückkehr des Autors. Zur Erneuerung eines umstrittenen Be­
griffs. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Jaszi, Peter & Martha Woodmansee, eds. (1994). The Construction of Authorship. Tex­
tual Appropriation in Law and Literature. Durham: Duke UP.
Kamp, Werner (1996). Autorenkonzepte und Filminterpretation. Frankfurt/M.: Lang.
Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (2006). The Implied Author. Concept and Contro­
versy. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Kleinschmidt, Erich (1998). Autorschaft. Konzepte einer Theorie. Tübingen: Francke.
Kristeva, Julia ([1969] 1980). “Word, Dialogue, and Novel.” J. K. Desire in Language.
A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. New York: Columbia UP, 64–91.
Landow, George P., ed. (1994). Hyper/Text/Theory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Lanser, Susan (1992). Fictions of Authority. Women Writers and Narrative Voice.
Ithaca: Cornell UP.
 Author 11

Minnis, Alastair J. (1984). Medieval Theory of Authorship. Scholastic Attitudes in the

Later Middle Ages. London: Scholar Press.
Okopień-Sławińska, Alexandra ([1971] 1975). “Die personalen Relationen in der litera­
rischen Kommunikation.” R. Fieguth (ed). Literarische Kommunikation. Kron-
berg/Ts.: Scriptor, 127–147.
Parr, Rolf (2008). Autorschaft. Eine kurze Sozialgeschichte der literarischen Intelli­
genz in Deutschland zwischen 1860 und 1930. Heidelberg: Synchron Publ.
Plachta, Bodo, ed. (2001). Literarische Zusammenarbeit. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (2006). Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
Schaff, Barbara (2002). “Der Autor als Simulant authentischer Erfahrung. Vier Fallbei­
spiele fingierter Autorschaft.” H. Detering (ed). Autorschaft. Positionen und Revi­
sionen. Stuttgart: Metzler, 426–43.
Schmidt, Siegfried J. (1982). Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literature. The
Components of a Basic Theory. Hamburg: Buske.
Scholz, Bernhard F. (1999). “Alciato als emblematum pater et princeps. Zur Rekon­
struktion des frühmodernen Autorbegriffs.” F. Jannidis et al. (eds). Rückkehr des
Autors. Zur Erneuerung eines umstrittenen Begriffs. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 321–51.
Selbmann, Rolf (1994). Dichterberuf. Zum Selbstverständnis des Schriftstellers von der
Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart. Darmstadt: WBG.
Simanowski, Roberto (2001). “Autorschaften in digitalen Medien. Eine Einführung.”
Text & Kritik, No 152, 3–21.
Spoerhase, Carlos (2007). Autorschaft und Interpretation. Methodische Grundlegun­
gen einer philologischern Hermeneutik. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Strube, Werner (1999). “Über verschiedene Arten, den Autor besser zu verstehen, als er
sich selbst verstanden hat.” F. Jannidis et al. (eds). Rückkehr des Autors. Zur Er­
neuerung eines umstrittenen Begriffs. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 136–55.
Susman, Margarete (1910). Das Wesen der modernen deutschen Lyrik. Stuttgart:
Strecker & Schröder.
Walker, Cheryl (1990). “Feminist Literary Criticism and the Author.” Critical Inquiry
16, 551–71.
Wetzel, Michael (2000). “Autor/Künstler.” K. Barck et al. (eds). Ästhetische Grundbe­
griffe. Stuttgart: Metzler, vol. 1, 480–544.
Wimsatt, William K. & Monroe C. Beardsley ([1946] 1954). “The Intentional Fallacy.”
W. K. B. & M. C. B. (eds.). The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry.
Louisville: U of Kentucky P, 3–18.
Winko, Simone (1999). “Lost in hypertext? Autorkonzepte und neue Medien.” F. Jan­
nidis et al. (eds). Rückkehr des Autors. Zur Erneuerung eines umstrittenen Begriffs.
Tübingen: Niemeyer, 511–33.
– (2002). “Autor-Funktionen. Zur argumentativen Verwendung von Autorkonzepten
in der gegenwärtigen literaturwissenschaftlichen Interpretationspraxis.” H. Detering
(ed). Autorschaft. Positionen und Revisionen. Stuttgart: Metzler, 334–54.
Wolf, Norbert Christian (2002). “Wieviele Leben hat der Autor? Zur Wiederkehr des
empirischen Autor- und des Werkbegriffs in der neueren Literaturtheorie.” H. Dete­
ring (ed). Autorschaft. Positionen und Revisionen. Stuttgart: Metzler, 390–405.
12 Author

5.2 Further Reading

“Der Autor” (1981). Special Issue of LiLi: Zeitschrift für Linguistik und Literaturwis­
senschaft 11, No 42.
Andersen, Elizabeth et al. eds. (1998). Autor und Autorschaft im Mittelalter. Tübingen:
Niemeyer.
Bennet, Andrew (2005). The Author. London: Routledge.
Burke, Seán (1992). The Death and Return of the Author. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
Chartier, Roger ([1992] 1994). “Figures of the Author.” R. Ch. The Order of Books.
Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth
Centuries. Stanford: Stanford UP, 25–60.
Cramer, Thomas (1986). “‘Solus creator est deus.’ Der Autor auf dem Weg zum Schöp­
fertum.” Daphnis 15, 261–76.
Frank, Susi, et al. eds. (2001). Mystifikation—Autorschaft—Original. Tübingen: Narr.
Genette, Gérard ([1987] 1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP.
Gölz, Christine (2009). “Autortheorien des slavischen Funktionalismus.” W. Schmid
(ed). Slavische Narratologie. Russische und tschechische Ansätze. Berlin: de Gruy­
ter, 187–237.
Haug, Walter & Burghart Wachinger, eds. (1991). Autorentypen. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Hoffmann, Torsten & Daniela Langer (2007). “Autor.” Th. Anz (ed). Handbuch Litera­
turwissenschaft. Stuttgart: Metzler, vol. 1, 131–70.
Holmes, David I. (1994). “Authorship Attribution.” Computer and the Humanities 28,
87–106.
Howard, Rebecca Moore (1999). Standing in the Shadows of Giants. Plagiarists, Au­
thors, Collaborators. Stanford: Ablex Publ.
Ingold, Felix Philipp & Werner Wunderlich, eds. (1995). Der Autor im Dialog. Beiträ­
ge zu Autorität und Autorschaft. St. Gallen: UVK.
Irwin, William, ed. (2002). The Death and Resurrection of the Author. Westport:
Greenwood P.
Kamouf, Peggy (1988). Signature Pieces. On the Institution of Authorship. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
Lamarque, Peter (1990). “The Death of the Author: An Analytical Autopsy.” The Bri-
tish Journal of Aesthetic 30, 319–31.
Moers, Ellen (1985). Literary Women. New York: Oxford UP.
Nelles, William (1993). “Historical and Implied Authors and Readers.” Comparative
Literature 45, 22–46.
Nesbit, Molly (1987). “What Was An Author?” Yale French Studies No 73, 229–57.
Peschel-Rentsch, Dietmar (1991). Gott, Autor, ich. Skizzen zur Genese von Autorbe­
wußtsein und Erzählerfigur im Mittelalter. Erlangen: Palm & Enke.
Rose, Mark (1993). Authors and Owners. The Invention of Copyright. Cambridge: Har­
vard UP.
Sherman, Brad & Alain Strowel, eds. (1994). Of Authors and Origins. Essays on Copy­
right Law. Oxford: Clarendon P.
Simion, Eugen (1996). The Return of the Author. Evanston: Northwestern UP.
 Author 13

Stecker, Robert (1987). “Apparent, Implied and Postulated Authors.” Philosophy and
Literature 11, 258–71.
Sussloff, Catherine (1997). The Absolute Artist: The Historiography of a Concept.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
Viala, Alain (1985). Naissance de l’écrivain. Sociologie de la littérature à l’âge
classique. Paris: Minuit.
Vogel, Martin (1978). “Deutsche Urheber- und Verlagsrechtsgeschichte zwischen 1450
und 1850.” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 19, Sp. 1–190.
Woodmansee, Martha (1994). The Author, Art, and the Market: Rereading the History
of Aesthetics. New York: Columbia UP.
 Character
Fotis Jannidis

1 Definition

Character is a text- or media-based figure in a storyworld, usually hu­

man or human-like.

2 Explication

The term “character” is used to refer to participants in storyworlds cre­

ated by various media (→ narration in various media) in contrast to
“persons” as individuals in the real world. The status of characters is a
matter of long-standing debate: can characters be treated solely as an
effect created by recurrent elements in the discourse (Weinsheimer
1979), or are they to be seen as entities created by words but distin­
guishable from them and calling for knowledge about human beings
(cf. 3.1)? Answering the latter question involves determining what
kinds of knowledge are required, but also to what extent such knowl-
edge is employed in understanding characters. Three forms of knowl-
edge in particular are relevant for the narratological analysis of charac­
ter: (a) the basic type, which provides a very fundamental structure for
those entities which are seen as sentient beings; (b) character models or
types such as the femme fatale or the hard-boiled detective; (c) ency-
clopedic knowledge of human beings underlying inferences which con­
tribute to the process of characterization, i.e. a store of information
ranging from everyday knowledge to genre-specific competence. Most
theoretical approaches to character seek to circumscribe reliance on
real-world knowledge in some way and treat characters as entities in a
storyworld subject to specific rules (cf. 3.2). One important line of
thought in the anti-realistic treatment of character is the functional
view. In this perspec-tive, first established by Aristotle, characters are
subordinate to or determined by the narrative action; in the 20th cen­
tury, there have been attempts to describe characters in terms of a deep
structure based on their roles in the plot common to all narratives (cf.
3.3).
15 Character

At the discourse level, the presentation of characters shares many

features with the presentation of other kinds of fictional entities. How­
ever, because of the importance of character in telling stories, these
features have been discussed mainly in terms of character presentation.
Among these features are the naming of characters, studied from the
perspective of the function and meaning of names, and other ways of
referring to characters, which contribute to the overall structural coher­
ence of the text (cf. 3.4). Equally if not more important, however, is the
process of ascribing properties to names which results in agents having
these properties in the storyworld, a process known as characterization.
Characterization may be direct, as when a trait is ascribed explicitly to
a character, or indirect, when it is the result of inferences drawn from
the text based partly on world knowledge and especially the different
forms of character knowledge mentioned above. The term “character-
ization” can be used to refer to the ascription of a property to a charac­
ter, but also for the overall process and result of attributing traits to a
given character. The process of characterization can have different
forms: e.g. a character is attributed specific traits at the beginning of a
narrative, but other traits are subsequently added that may not conform
to the original characterization, such subverting the first conception of
this character (cf. 3.5).
Viewing characters as entities of a storyworld does not imply that
they are self-contained. On the contrary, the storyworld is constructed
during the process of narrative communication, and characters thus
form a part of the signifying structures which motivate and determine
the narrative communication. Characters also play a role in thematic,
symbolic or other constellations of the text and of the storyworld (cf.
3.6).
For most readers, characters are one of the most important aspects
of a narrative. How readers relate to a character is a matter of empirical
analysis, but it is important to bear in mind that the way the text pre-
sents a character is highly influential on the relation between character
and reader. Three factors in particular are relevant in this regard: (a)
the transfer of perspective; (b) the reader’s affective predisposition to­
ward the character―itself influenced by: (i) the character’s emotions,
whether explicitly described or implicitly conveyed; (ii) the reader’s re­
action to her mental simulation of the character’s position; (iii) the ex­
pression of emotions in the presentation―and (c) evaluation of charac­
ters in the text (cf. 3.7).
There has always been a need to categorize characters in order to fa­
cilitate description and analysis. However, most proposals seem to be
either too complex or theoretically unsatisfying, so that Forster’s clas­
 Character 16

sification into flat vs. round characters continues to be widely used

(3.8).

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Until recently, there was nothing like a coherent field of research for
the concept of character, but only a loose set of notions related to it
touching on such issues as the ontological status of characters, the kind
of knowledge necessary to understand characters, the relation between
character and action, the naming of characters, characterization as pro­
cess and result, the relation of the reader to a character centering
around the notions of identification and empathy, etc. The situation has
changed over the past ten or fifteen years thanks to a series of mono­
graphs on character by Culpeper (2001), Eder (2008), Jannidis (2004),
Koch (1992), Palmer (2004), and Schneider (2001), all of which are in­
debted to the ground-breaking work done by Margolin in the 1980s and
1990s. Most of these studies draw on the cognitive sciences and their
models of text processing and perception of persons (→ cognitive nar­
ratology). However, even though there is now a consensus on some as­
pects of character in narrative, many other aspects continue to be
treated disparately.

3.1 People or Words

Characters have long been regarded as fictive people. To understand

characters, readers tend to resort to their knowledge about real people.
In this framework, an anthropological, biological or psychological the­
ory of persons can also be used in character analysis, as in Freud’s an-
alysis of Hamlet where he claims “I have here translated into con­
sciousness what had to remain unconscious in the mind of the hero”
(Freud [1900] 1950: 164).
Another school of thought pictured character as mere words or a
paradigm of traits described by words. A well-known example of this
approach is Barthes’s S/Z (1970) in which one of the codes, “voices,”
substitutes for person, understood as the web of semes attached to a
proper name. In this view, a character is not to be taken for anything
like a person, yet on closer examination these semes correspond to tra­
ditional character traits. Although he differs from Barthes in many re­
gards, Lotman (1970), in a similar vein, describes character as a sum of
all binary oppositions to the other characters in a text which, together,
constitute a paradigm. A character thus forms part of a constellation of
17 Character

characters who either share a set of common traits (parallels) or repre-

sent opposing traits (contrasts).
This was not the first attack against a mimetic understanding of
character during the last century, a comparable approach to character
having already been advocated by the New Criticism. Wellek & War­
ren (1949) claimed that a character consists only of the words by which
it is described or into whose mouth they are put by the author. Knights
(1933) had earlier ridiculed the tendency in British criticism to treat
character presentations like the representations of people with the ques­
tion “How many Children had Lady Macbeth?” Despite this criticism,
the reduction of characters to words was not convincing, for it posed
many practical problems in literary criticism and also seemed to some
critics unsatisfactory for theoretical reasons. Hochman (1985), for ex­
ample, defended the idea of character as human-like against structural­
ist and post-structuralist conceptions with moral and aesthetic argu­
ments.
Given this situation, the series of essays by Margolin, by combining
elements of structuralism, reception theory and the theory of fictional
worlds, proved to be a breakthrough. For Margolin (1993), characters
are first and foremost elements of the constructed narrative world:
“character,” he claims, “is a general semiotic element, independent of
any particular verbal expression and ontologically different from it”
(7). He further points out that characters can have various modes of ex­
istence in storyworlds: they can be factual, counterfactual, hypotheti-
cal, conditional, or purely subjective (1995: 375). Also taken up are
questions such as how characters come into existence and what consti­
tutes their identity (→ identity and narration), especially in storyworlds
as a transtextual concept.
Philosophers, especially those with roots in analytical philosophy,
have discussed the special ontological status of character under the la­
bel of incompleteness of characters. Unlike persons who exist in the
real world and are complete, we can speak meaningfully only about
those aspects of characters which have been described in the text or
which are implied by it. Consequently, descriptions of characters have
gaps, and often the missing information cannot be inferred from the
given information. In contrast to the description of real persons in
which a gap may appear even though it is assumed that the person is
complete, characters have gaps if the description does not supply the
necessary information (Eaton 1976; Crittenden 1982; Lamarque 2003).
Even though there is currently a broad consensus that character can
best be described as an entity forming part of the storyworld, the onto­
logical status of this world and its entities remains unclear. Narrato­
 Character 18

logical theory presently offers three approaches to addressing this prob­

lem: (a) drawing on the theory of possible worlds, the storyworld is
seen as an independent realm created by the text (Margolin 1990); (b)
from the perspective of cognitive theories of the reading process, char­
acter is seen as a mental model created by an empirical reader
(Schneider 2001); (c) from the perspective of the neo-hermeneutical
theory of literary communication, the text is an intentional object and
character is a mental model created by an hypothetical historical model
reader. This approach incorporates a number of insights into text pro­
cessing, but focuses on the text (Jannidis 2004). The main differences
between these approaches lie in how the presentation of character is
described and in the use of principles borrowed from the cognitive sci­
ences.

3.2 Character Knowledge

Even some of those who have claimed that character is a paradigm of

traits assume that there exists a cultural code making it possible to per­
ceive these traits as a meaningful whole (Lotman 1970), or Gestalt.
This code is also resorted to in the perception of people in everyday
life such that there is an interaction between the formation of (narra-
tive) characters and the perception of people not only because the per­
ception of people determines how plausible a character is, but also be­
cause the way characters are presented in narratives can may change
the way people are perceived. At the same time, this cultural code con­
tains information that is not applied to people but only to characters,
especially stock characters and genre-based character types. Even so,
the notion of a cultural code is probably too vague, since it encom­
passes different aspects or levels which should be distinguished: the
basis type; character models; character schemas.
The concept of basis type adopts recent insights from developmen-
tal psychology. From early on, humans distinguish between objects and
sentient beings. They apply to the perception of the latter a theory of
mind which ascribes to them mental states such as intentions, wishes,
and beliefs. Once an entity in the storyworld is identified as a charac­
ter, this framework is applied to that entity, the basis type thus provid­
ing the basic outline of a character: there is an invisible “inside” which
is the source of all intentions, wishes, etc., and a visible “outside”
which can be perceived. All aspects of a basis type can be negated for a
specific character, but either this is done explicitly or it results from
genre conventions (Jannidis 2004: 185–95; Zunshine 2006: 22–7). On
another, more concrete level, knowledge about time- and culture-spe­
19 Character

cific types contributes to the perception of characters. Some are “stock

characters” such as the rich miser, the femme fatale, or the mad scien-
tist, while others draw upon general habitus knowledge in a society
like the formal and laborious accountant, the old-maid teacher or the
19th-century laborer (Frevert & Haupt ed. 2004). Such figures serve as
character models. Character models are often associated with standard­
ized “character constellations” such as cuckold, wife, and lover. In
popular culture, characterization frequently depends on character mod­
els, and the creative variation of these models is highly appreciated,
while in high culture there is a strong tendency to avoid character mod­
els (cf. 3.8; Lotman [1970] 1977: 239–60).
It is important to note that basis type and character models do not
exhaust the relevant knowledge forms for characters. In many instances
of character description, encyclopedic knowledge—from both the real
world and fictional worlds—comes into play, combining two or more
items of character- (or person-)related information (e.g. “too much al­
cohol makes people drunk” or “vampires can be killed by a wooden
stake driven into their heart”). In many cases, texts offer the reader
only a fragment of information, prompting the reader to fill in the miss­
ing parts based on the appropriate knowledge. In text analysis, this kind
of character encyclopedia is relevant more often than the other two,
and differences in the interpretation of characters are frequently based
on the fact that different entries from the character encyclopedia are re­
sorted to.

3.3 Character and Action

One of the oldest theoretical statements on character reflects on the re­

lation of character and action: “for tragedy is not a representation of
men but of a piece of action […]. Moreover, you could not have a
tragedy without action, but you can have one without character-study”
(Aristotle [1927] 1932: 1450a). What Aristotle said in relation to
tragedy became the origin of a school of thought which claims that in
order to understand a character in a fictional text, one need only to an-
alyze its role in the action. This approach was put on a new foundation
by Propp (1928) in a ground-breaking corpus study of the Russian folk­
tale. In analyzing a hundred Russian fairy tales, he constructed a se­
quence of 31 functions which he attributed to seven areas of action or
types of character: opponent; donor; helper; princess and her father;
dispatcher; hero; false hero. Greimas (1966) generalized this approach
with his actant model in which all narrative characters are regarded as
expressions of an underlying narrative grammar composed of six act­
 Character 20

ants ordered into pairs: the hero (also sujet) and his search for an ob­
ject; the sender and the receiver; the hero’s helper and the opponent.
Each actant is not necessarily realized in one single character, since
one character may perform more than one role, and one role may be
distributed among several characters. Schank’s concept of story skele-
tons also starts from the idea that stories have an underlying structure,
but in his model there are many such structures and therefore many dif­
ferent roles for actors, e.g. the story of a divorce using the story skele-
ton “betrayal” with the two actors: the betrayer and the betrayed
(Schank 1995: chap. 6).
Campbell (1949) described in an influential work what he called,
using a term coined by James Joyce, the “monomyth,” which is an ab­
straction of numerous mythological and religious stories marking the
stages of the hero’s way: separation/departure; the trials and victories
of initiation; return and reintegration into society (Campbell [1949]
1990: 36). According to Campbell, who bases his argument on Freud’s
and especially on Jung’s form of psychoanalysis, the monomyth is uni­
versal and can be found in stories, myths, and legends all over the
world. In contrast to these generalized model-oriented approaches, tra­
ditional approaches tend to employ a genre- and period-specific vocab­
ulary for action roles such as confidant and intriguer in traditional
drama, or villain, sidekick, and henchman in the popular media of the
20th century.
Most of the common labels for character in use refer to the role a
character has in action. “Protagonist,” in use since Greek antiquity,
refers to the main character of a narrative or a play, and “antagonist” to
its main opponent. In contrast to these neutral labels, the term “hero”
refers to a positive figure, usually in some kind of representative story.
In modern high-culture narratives, there is more often an anti-hero or
no single protagonist at all, but a constellation of characters (Tröhler
2007).

3.4 Referring to Characters

Referring to characters in texts occurs with the use of proper names,

definite descriptions and personal pronouns (Margolin 1995: 374). In
addition to these direct references, indirect evocations can be found:
the untagged rendering of direct speech, the description of actions (e.g.
“a hand grabbed”) or use of the passive voice (“the window was
opened”). The role of names in interpreting characters has been treated
repeatedly, resulting in different ways of classifying name usage (e.g.
Lamping 1983; Birus 1987).
21 Character

Narratives can be viewed as a succession of scenes or situative

frames, only one of which is active at any given moment. An active
situative frame may contain numerous characters, but only some of
them will be focused on by being explicitly referred to in the corre-
sponding stretch of text. The first active frame in which a character oc­
curs and is explicitly referred to constitutes its “introduction.” After be­
ing introduced, a character may drop out of sight, not be referred to for
several succeeding active frames, and then reappear. In general,
whenever a character is encountered in an active frame, it is to be de­
termined whether this is its first occurrence or whether it has already
been introduced in an earlier active frame and is reappearing at a par­
ticular point. Determining that a character in the current active scene
has already appeared in an earlier one is termed “identification.” A dis­
tinction is to be made between normal, false, impeded, and deferred
identifications. A “false identification” occurs when a previously men­
tioned character is identified but it then becomes clear later that some
other character was in fact being referred to. An “impeded identifica­
tion” does not refer unequivocally to any specific character, and a clear
reference to the character or characters is never given in the text, while
in the case of “deferred identification” the reader is ultimately able to
establish the identity of an equivocally presented character. Deferred
identification can further be broken down into an overt form in which
the reader knows that he is kept in the dark and a covert form (Jannidis
2004: chap. 4 & 6, based on Emmott 1997).

3.5 Characterization

Characterization can be described as ascribing information to an agent

in the text so as to provide a character in the storyworld with a certain
property or properties, a process often referred to as ascribing a prop­
erty to a character. In the 19th century, critics spoke of the difference
between direct and indirect characterization and of the preference of
contemporary writers and readers for the latter (Scherer [1888] 1977:
156–57). Until recently, characterization was understood as the text
ascribing psychological or social traits to a character (e.g. Chatman
1978), but in fact texts ascribe all manner of properties to characters,
including physiological and locative (space-time location) properties.
Yet some textually explicit ascriptions of properties to a character may
turn out to be invalid, as when this information is attributable to an un­
reliable → narrator or to a fellow-character. Moreover, a textual ascrip­
tion may turn out to be hypothetical or purely subjective. There are
also texts and styles of writing (e.g. the psychological novel) which
 Character 22

tend to avoid any explicit statements of characterization. The crucial is­

sue in the process of characterization is thus what information, espe­
cially of a psychological nature, a reader is able to associate with any
character as a member of the storyworld and where this information
comes from. There are at least three sources of such information: (a)
textually explicit ascription of properties to a character; (b) inferences
that can be drawn from textual cues (e.g. “she smiled nervously”); (c)
inferences based on information which is not associated with the char­
acter by the text itself but through reference to historically and cultur­
ally variable real-world conventions (e.g. the appearance of a room re­
veals something about the person living there or the weather expresses
the feelings of the protagonist). A systematic description of such infer­
ences employed in characterization is given by Margolin (1983). Infer­
ences can be understood in terms of abductions (Keller 1998: chap. 9,
based on Peirce), so that the fundamental role of character models and
of the character encyclopedia becomes obvious: the information de­
rived from them is not included in the text, but is presupposed to a
greater or lesser degree by it.
Another key problem concerns the limits and underlying rules of
such inferences when they are applied to fictional beings. Ryan (1980),
noting that readers tend to assume that a storyworld resembles the real
world unless explicitly stated otherwise, adopts the philosopher David
Lewis’s “principle of minimal departure.” In a thorough criticism of
this and similar hypotheses, Walton points out that this would make an
infinite number of inferences possible, and he comes to the conclusion:
“There is no particular reason why anyone’s beliefs about the real
world should come into play. As far as implications are concerned,
simple conventions to the effect that whenever such and such is fiction­
al, so and so is as well, serve nicely […]” (Walton 1990: 166). This ap­
proach, in turn, increases the number of conventions without necessity
and without providing any convincing argument as to how readers go
about accessing these conventions, aside from drawing on their real-
world knowledge, despite the fact that many conventions apply only to
fictional worlds. Even so, this does not invalidate Walton’s criticism,
which can probably be refuted only by including another element: the
fact that characters are part of storyworlds which are not self-con­
tained, but communicated. Readers’ assumptions about what is relevant
in the process of communication determine the scope and validity of
inferences (Sperber & Wilson 1986).
The presentation of characters is a dynamic process, just as is the
construction of characters in the reader’s mind. A powerful model for
describing the psychological or cognitive dynamics coming into play
23 Character

here, based on the “top-down” and “bottom-up” processes observed

during empirical studies on reading comprehension, has been proposed
by Schneider (2001) building on concepts developed by Gerrig &
Allbritton (1990). A top-down process occurs in the application of a
category to a character, integrating the information given by the text
into this category, while a bottom-up process results from the text in­
formation integrating a character into a type or building up an individ-
ualized representation. At the beginning of a character presentation,
textual cues may trigger various types of categorization: social types
(“the teacher,” “the widow”); literary types (the hero in a Bildungsro­
man); text-specific types (characters that do not change throughout the
story). In contrast to the top-down processing that takes place in these
forms of categorization is bottom-up processing. This occurs when the
→ reader is unable to integrate the given information into an existing
category, resulting in personalization of the character. Personalized
characters can also be members of a category, but this is not the focus
of their description. Reading a text involves building up either categor­
ized or personalized characters, but information subsequently en­
countered in the text may change their status and possibly decategorize
or depersonalize those characters.

3.6 Character and Meaning

Characters can be seen as entities in a storyworld. However, this

should not be understood to mean that characters are self-contained. On
the contrary: they are at the same time devices in the communication of
meaning and serve purposes other than the communication of the facts
of the storyworld as well. This matter was discussed above in the rela­
tion between character and action. In many forms of narrative, how­
ever, action is not the organizing principle, but a theme or an idea, and
the characters in these texts are determined by that theme or idea. An
extreme example is personification, i.e. the representation of an ab­
stract principle such as freedom or justice as a character, as found in al­
legorical literature. Another example is certain dialogue novels, where
the characters’ role is to propound philosophical ideas. On the other
hand, even the most life-like characters in a realistic novel can often
also be described in light of their place in a thematic progression. Thus,
Phelan (1987) has proposed to describe character as participation in a
mimetic sphere (due to the character’s traits), a thematic sphere (as a
representative of an idea or of a class of people), and a synthetic sphere
(the material out of which the character is made). In his heuristic of
film characters, Eder (2008) adopts a similar breakdown, but adds a
 Character 24

fourth dimension relating to communication between the film and the

audience: (a) the character as an artifact (how is it made?); (b) the char­
acter as a fictional being (what features describe the character?); (c) the
character as a symbol (what meaning is communicated through the
character?); and (d) the character as a symptom (why is the character as
it is and what is the effect?). The difference between characters as part
of storyworlds and the meaning of character cannot be aligned with the
difference between (narratological) description and interpretation be­
cause elements of a character or the description of a character are often
motivated by their role in thematic, symbolic, aesthetic and other net­
works.

3.7 Relation of the Reader to the Character

Characters may induce strong feelings in readers, a fact often discussed

under the label “identification.” Identification is a psychological pro­
cess and as such lies outside of the scope of narrative analysis. On the
other hand, it is widely recognized that to some extent identification
results from and is controlled by various textual cues and devices. A
first problem is the concept of identification itself, since it involves a
variety of aspects: sympathy with a character who is similar to the
reader; empathy for a character who is in a particular situation; attrac­
tion to a character who is a role model for the reader. To date, there is
no means of integrating all of these factors into a satisfactory theory of
identification. There are older, mostly outdated models of identifica­
tion, based on Freud or Lacan, and newer models, some of which are
based on empirical studies (e.g. Oatley & Gholamain 1997), while oth­
ers seek to integrate empirical findings and media analysis (e.g. Eder
2008, part VII). Another problem is historical variation: much literature
before 1800 aims more at creating an attitude of admiration for the
protagonist than it does at immersing the reader in the situation of the
character (Jauss 1974; Schön 1999).
Provisionally, the problem of identification with the character in
narrative can be broken down into the following three aspects: (a)
“transfer of perspective” works on different levels: perception (the
reader “experiences” the sensory input of a character); intention (the
reader is made aware of a character’s goals); beliefs (the reader is in­
troduced into the character’s worldview). In narrative texts, such trans­
fer occurs in part through the devices of → focalization and → speech
representation; (b) the “affective relation” to the character is a complex
phenomenon resulting from various factors. First is the information
gleaned from the text bearing on the character’s emotions projected
25 Character

against the backdrop of general, historical, and cultural schemas applic­

able to particular situations and the emotions “appropriate” for these
situations. Second is mental simulation of the depicted events, which
creates an empathetic reaction involving the reader’s disposition to re­
spond to the emotion experienced by the character (a display of sadness
creates pity), but may also activate similar emotions (a display of sad­
ness generates a similar feeling in the reader). To what extent such sim­
ulations actually occur has been discussed extensively: proponents see
support for their position in the discovery of mirror neurons (Lauer
2007), while opponents point out that this aspect plays a limited role if
any at all (e.g. Mellmann [2006], who models the reader’s response on
the basis of evolutionary psychology). Such responsive dispositions
may be socially induced, but they may also exist in other forms, such as
sadistic or voyeuristic arousal. In any case, reaction to simulated events
is not constrained to characters, but includes events of all types. These
reactions to events not directly related to characters can be used to “ex­
ternalize” the character’s affects (e.g. a description of a storm which
reflects the agitated state of mind of the protagonist watching the
storm). The third factor in the affective relation is the expressive use of
language or the presentation of emotions in texts using phonetic,
rhythmic, metrical, syntactical, lexical, figurative, rhetorical, and nar­
rative devices including free indirect discourse and similar strategies
(Winko 2003); (c) “evaluation of characters” is based on historically
and culturally variable measures of value. Evaluation can be explicit
thanks to the use of evaluative vocabulary, or implicit due to behavior
that implies evaluation according common social standards. This in­
cludes implicit comparison between the reader or spectator and the
protagonist, already described by Aristotle. An evaluative stance to­
ward a character creates such emotional responses as admiration, sym­
pathy or repulsion, at the same time coloring the reader’s affective rela­
tion to the character.

3.8 Categories of Character

The most widely known proposal on how to categorize character is still

Forster’s opposition between flat and round characters: “Flat characters
[...] are constructed round a single idea or quality” ([1927] 1985: 67)
while round characters are “more highly organized” (75) and “are cap­
able of surprising in a convincing way” (78). Critics have long accept-
ed this categorization as plausible, relating it to the way real people are
perceived. However, the criteria Forster based it on are vague, espe­
cially the notion of development to explain the impression of a round
 Character 26

character (e.g. Scholes et al. [1966] 2006: chap. 5). A significant prob­
lem in this discussion results from the fact that all we know about a
specific character is based on what can be learned from a text or an-
other medium. Therefore, it is often not easy to distinguish between the
character and the way it is presented, as can be seen, for example, with
Rimmon-Kenan, who proposes three dimensions to categorize charac­
ters: “complexity, development, penetration into the ‘inner life’”
([1983] 2002: 41), thus mixing aspects of the character as an entity of
the storyworld with those of its presentation. Similarly, Hochman
(1985) proposes eight dimensions as a basis of categorization without
distinguishing between these two aspects. To name but three of them:
stylization―naturalism; complexity—simplicity; dynamism—stat­
icism. One of the earliest attempts to distinguish clearly between these
aspects in categorizing characters comes from Fishelov (1990), who
combines the opposition between presentation and storyworld with the
distinction between flat and round characters. Another problematic as­
pect of this approach is the fact that it is almost always combined with
an evaluative stance valorizing the complex and devaluating the simple
regardless of the requirements of different genres (as Forster already
deplored), or deprecating those genres.
Stereotypes are often regarded as the prototypical flat character.
With Dyer (1993), however, a distinction can be drawn between the so­
cial type and the stereotype. Social types are known because they be­
long to a society with which the reader is familiar, while stereotypes
are ready-made images of the unknown. In fiction they differ, accord­
ing to Dyer, to the extent that social types can appear in almost any
kind of plot, while stereotypes carry with them an implicit narrative.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

All of the aspects outlined above deserve further investigation, but

three problems are of particular interest in the current state of research.
(a) Recent decades have seen a growing interest in the social construc­
tion of identities—national identities, gender identities, etc. Analysis of
character presentation and formation plays an important part in any in­
terpretation interested in identity construction in literature, but up to
now those engaged in identity analysis have neglected narratological
research on character; at the same time, narrative analysis has mostly
ignored the historical case studies carried out on identity construction
by specialists of cultural studies. (b) Evaluation in literary texts has
been and is still a neglected field of research. There are many ways a
text can influence or predetermine the evaluative stance of the reader,
27 Character

and much systematic and historical work in this area remains to be

done. (c) The question of how a reader relates to a character can only
be answered by an interdisciplinary research bringing together textual
analysis and the cognitive sciences.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Aristotle ([1927] 1932). Aristotle in 23 Volumes. Vol. 23: The Poetics. Tr. W. H. Fyfe.
London: Heinemann.
Barthes, Roland ([1970] 1974). S/Z. New York: Hill & Wang.
Birus, Hendrik (1987). “Vorschlag zu einer Typologie literarischer Namen.” Zeitschrift
für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 17, No 67, 38–51.
Campbell, Joseph ([1949] 1990). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Harper
& Row.
Chatman, Seymour (1978). “Existents.” S. Ch. Story and Discourse: Narrative Struc­
ture in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 96–145.
Crittenden, Charles (1982). “Fictional Characters and Logical Completeness.” Poetics
11, 331–44.
Culpeper, Jonathan (2001). Language and Characterisation. People in Plays and other
Texts. Harlow: Longman.
Dyer, Richard (1993). “The Role of Stereotypes.” R. D. The Matter of Images: Essays
on Representations. New York: Routledge, 11–8.
Eaton, Marcia M. (1976). “On Being a Character.” British Journal of Aesthetics 16,
24–31.
Eder, Jens (2007). “Filmfiguren: Rezeption und Analyse.” T. Schick & T. Ebbrecht
(eds). Emotion―Empathie―Figur: Spiel-Formen der Filmwahrnehmung. Berlin:
Vistas, 131–50.
– (2008). Die Figur im Film. Grundlage der Figurenanalyse. Marburg: Schüren.
Emmott, Catherine (1997). Narrative Comprehension: A Discourse Perspective. Ox­
ford: Clarendon P.
Fishelov, David (1990). “Types of Character, Characteristics of Types.” Style 24, 422–
39.
Forster, Edward M. ([1927] 1985). Aspects of the Novel. San Diego: Harcourt.
Freud, Sigmund ([1900] 1950). The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: The Modern
Library.
Frevert, Ute & Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, ed. (2004). Der Mensch des 19. Jahrhunderts.
Essen: Magnus.
Gerrig, Richard J. & David W. Allbritton (1990). “The Construction of Literary Char­
acter: A View from Cognitive Psychology.” Style 24, 380–91.
 Character 28

Greimas, Algirdas Julien ([1966] 1983). Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method.

Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Hochman, Baruch (1985). Character in Literature. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Jannidis, Fotis (2004). Figur und Person. Beitrag zu einer historischen Narratologie.
Berlin: de Gruyter.
Jauss, Hans Robert (1974). “Levels of Identification of Hero and Audience.” New Lite-
rary History 5, 283–317.
Keller, Rudi (1998). A Theory of Linguistic Signs. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Knights, Lionel C. ([1933] 1973). How many Children had Lady Macbeth? An Essay
in the Theory and Practice of Shakespeare Criticism. New York: Haskell House.
Koch, Thomas (1992). Literarische Menschendarstellung: Studien zu ihrer Theorie
und Praxis. Tübingen: Stauffenberg.
Lamarque, Peter (2003). “How to Create a Fictional Character.” B. Gaut & P. Linving­
ston (eds). The Creation of Art. New Essays in Philosophical Aesthetics. Cam­
bridge: Cambridge UP, 33–51.
Lamping, Dieter (1983). Der Name in der Erzählung. Zur Poetik des Personennamens.
Bonn: Bouvier.
Lauer, Gerhard (2007). “Spiegelneuronen: Über den Grund des Wohlgefallens an der
Nachahmung.” K. Eibl et al. (eds). Im Rücken der Kulturen. Paderborn: Mentis,
137–63.
Lotman, Jurij M. ([1970] 1977). “The Composition of the Verbal Work of Art.” Ju. L.
The Structure of the Artistic Text. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 239–50.
Margolin, Uri (1983). “Characterisation in Narrative: Some Theoretical Prolegomena.”
Neophilologus 67, 1–14.
– (1990). “Individuals in Narrative Worlds: An Ontological Perspective.” Poetics
Today 11, 843–71.
– (1992). “Fictional Individuals and their Counterparts.” J. Andrew (ed). Poetics of
the Text: Essays to celebrate 20 Years of the Neo-Formalist Circle. Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 43–56.
– (1995). “Characters in Literary Narrative: Representation and Signification.” Semi­
otica 106, 373–92.
Mellmann, Katja (2006). Emotionalisierung. Von der Nebenstundenpoesie zum Buch
als Freund: Eine emotionspsychologische Analyse der Literatur der Aufklärungs­
epoche. Paderborn: Mentis.
Oatley, Keith & Mitra Gholamain (1997). “Emotions and Identification: Connections
between Readers and Fiction.” M. Hjort & S. Laver (eds). Emotion and the Arts.
New York: Oxford UP, 263–81.
Palmer, Alan (2004). Fictional Minds. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Phelan, James (1987). “Character, Progression, and the Mimetic-Didactic Distinction.”
Modern Philology 84, 282–99.
Propp, Vladimir ([1928] 1984). Theory and History of Folklore. Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota P.
29 Character

Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics.

London: Routledge.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1980). “Fiction, Non-Factuals, and Minimal Departure.” Poetics 8,
403–22.
Schank, Roger C. (1995). Tell me a Story. Narrative and Intelligence. Evanston: North­
western UP.
Scherer, Wilhelm ([1888] 1977). Poetik. Tübingen: Niemeyer, dtv.
Schneider, Ralf (2001). “Toward a Cognitive Theory of Literary Character: The Dy­
namics of Mental-Model Construction.” Style 35, 607–39.
Schön, Erich (1999). “Geschichte des Lesens.” B. Franzmann et al. (eds). Handbuch
Lesen. München: Saur, 1–85.
Scholes, Robert, et al. ([1966] 2006). The Nature of Narrative. Revised and Expanded
Edition. New York: Oxford UP.
Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson ([1986] 1995). Relevance: Communication and Cogni­
tion. Oxford: Blackwell.
Tröhler, Margrit (2007). Offene Welten ohne Helden. Plurale Figurenkonstellationen
im Film. Marburg: Schüren.
Walton, Kendall (1990). Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of Representa­
tional Arts. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Weinsheimer, Joel (1979). “Theory of Character: Emma.” Poetics Today 1, 185–211.
Wellek, René & Austin Warren (1949). Theory of Literature. London: J. Cape.
Winko, Simone (2003). Kodierte Gefühlte: Zu einer Poetik der Emotionen in lyrischen
und poetologischen Texten um 1900. Berlin: Schmidt.
Zunshine, Lisa (2006): Why We Read Fiction. Theory of Mind and the Novel. Colum­
bus: Ohio State UP.

5.2 Further Reading

Jouve, Vincent (1992). L’effet-personnage dans le roman. Paris: Presses Universitaires

de France.
Knapp, John V., ed. (1990). “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literary Character.” Spe­
cial Issue of Style 24.3.
Margolin, Uri (2007). “Character.” D. Hermann (ed). The Cambridge Companion to
Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 66–79.
 Cognitive Narratology
David Herman

1 Definition

Cognitive narratology can be defined as the study of mind-relevant as­

pects of storytelling practices, wherever—and by whatever means—
those practices occur. As this definition suggests, cognitive narratology
is transmedial in scope; it encompasses the nexus of narrative and mind
not just in print texts but also in face-to-face interaction, cinema, radio
news broadcasts, computer-mediated virtual environments, and other
storytelling media. In turn, “mind-relevance” can be studied vis-à-vis
the multiple factors associated with the design and interpretation of
narratives, including the story-producing activities of tellers, the pro­
cesses by means of which interpreters make sense of the narrative
worlds (or “storyworlds”) evoked by narrative representations or arti­
facts, and the cognitive states and dispositions of characters in those
storyworlds. In addition, the mind-narrative nexus can be studied along
two other dimensions, insofar as stories function as both (a) a target of
interpretation and (b) a means for making sense of experience—a re­
source for structuring and comprehending the world—in their own
right.

2 Explication

Cognitive narratology can be characterized as a subdomain within

“postclassical” narratology (Herman 1999). At issue are frameworks
for narrative research that build on the work of classical, structuralist
narratologists but supplement that work with concepts and methods
that were unavailable to story analysts such as Barthes, Genette, Grei­
mas, and Todorov during the heyday of the structuralist revolution. In
the case of developments bearing on cognitive narratology, narrative
analysts have worked to enrich the original base of structuralist con­
cepts with ideas about human intelligence either ignored by or inac­
cessible to the classical narratologists, thereby building new founda­
31 Cognitive Narratology

tions for the study of cognitive processes vis-à-vis various dimensions

of narrative structure.
Still an emergent trend within the broader domain of → narratology,
cognitive narratology encompasses multiple methods of analysis and
diverse narrative corpora. Relevant corpora include fictional and non­
fictional print narratives; computer-mediated narratives such as hyper­
text fictions, e-mail novels and blogs; comics and graphic novels; cine­
matic narratives; storytelling in face-to-face interaction; and other
instantiations of the narrative text type (→ narration in various media).
Meanwhile, theorists studying mind-relevant aspects of storytelling
practices adopt descriptive and explanatory tools from a variety of
fields—in part because of the interdisciplinary nature of research on
the mind-brain itself. Source disciplines include, in addition to narra-
tology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, psychology, and oth­
er domains. Making matters still more complicated, because the term
“cognitive narratology” is a relatively recent coinage (cf. 3), narrative
scholars working on issues that fall within this domain do not necessar­
ily identify their work as cognitive-narratological, and might even re-
sist being aligned with the approach.
It should therefore not be surprising that, given the range of artifacts
and media falling under its purview, its richly interdisciplinary herit­
age, and the multiplicity of projects relevant for if not directly associ­
ated with it, cognitive narratology at present constitutes more a set of
loosely confederated heuristic schemes than a systematic framework
for inquiry. Again, however, a trait shared by all this work is its focus
on mind-relevant aspects of storytelling practices—where “mind” is
shorthand for “mind-brain.” Insofar as stories constitute a target of in­
terpretation, key questions for cognitive narratology include: What
cognitive processes support narrative understanding, allowing readers,
viewers, or listeners to construct mental models of the worlds evoked
by stories? How do they use medium-specific cues to build on the basis
of the discourse or sujet a chronology for events, or fabula (what
happened when, or in what order?); a broader temporal and spatial en­
vironment for those events (when in history did these events occur, and
where geographically?); an inventory of the characters involved; and a
working model of what it was like for these characters to experience
the more or less disruptive or non-canonical events that constitute a
core feature of narrative representations (Herman 2009a: chap. 5)?
Further, insofar as narrative constitutes a sense-making instrument in
its own right, a way of structuring and understanding situations and
events, still other questions suggest themselves for cognitive narratolo­
gists: How exactly do stories function as tools for thinking (Herman
 Cognitive Narratology 32

2003)? Is it the case that, unlike other such tools (stress equations, de­
ductive arguments, etc.), narrative is a mode of representation tailor-
made for gauging the felt quality of lived experiences (Fludernik 1996;
Herman 2007a, 2007b, 2009a: chap. 6)? More radically, do stories af­
ford scaffolding for consciousness itself—in part by emulating through
their temporal and perspectival configuration the nature of conscious
awareness itself? In other words, are there grounds for making the
strong claim that narrative not only represents what it is like for experi­
encing minds to live through events in storyworlds, but also constitutes
a basis for having—for knowing—a mind at all, whether it is one’s
own or another’s (Herman 2009a: chap. 6)?
Arguably, questions such as these could not have been formulated,
let alone addressed, within classical frameworks for narrative study
(but cf. Barthes 1966 and Culler 1975 for early anticipations). Cogni-
tive narratology can thus be thought of as a problem space that opened
up when earlier, structuralist models were brought into synergistic in­
terplay with the many disciplines for which the mind-brain is a focal
concern.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 A Partial Genealogy of the Term “Cognitive Narratology”

At the time of writing, the term cognitive narratology itself has been in
use for only about a decade. As Eder (2003: 283 n.10) notes, the term
appears to have been first used by Jahn (1997). (In a personal commu­
nication, Jahn confirmed that when he published this article he was not
aware of any prior use of the term, but also that Ansgar Nünning must
be credited with suggesting the second part of the article’s title.) How­
ever, the issues and concerns encompassed by the term have been live
ones for a considerably longer period.
Beginning in the 1970s, studies in a number of fields provided, av­
ant la lettre, important foundations for cognitive-narratological re­
search. In the domain of literary studies, and in parallel with a broader
turn toward issues of reception or reader response (Iser 1972; Jauss
1977; Tompkins 1980), research by Sternberg (1978) and Perry (1979)
highlighted processing strategies (e.g. the “primacy” and “recency” ef­
fects) that arise from the situation of a given event vis-à-vis the two
temporal continua of story and discourse, or fabula and sujet. Events
that happen early in story-time can be encountered late in discourse-
time, or vice versa, producing different reading experiences from those
set into play when there is greater isomorphism between the time of the
33 Cognitive Narratology

told and the time of the telling. (A still earlier precedent in this connec­
tion is Ingarden’s [1931] account of literary texts as heteronomous vs.
autonomous objects, i.e. as schematic structures the concretization of
whose meaning potential requires the cognitive activity of readers.)
Likewise, in the fields of cognitive psychology and Artificial Intelli­
gence research, analysts began developing their own hypotheses about
cognitive structures underlying the production and understanding of
narrative.
Psychologists such as Mandler (1984), for example, postulated the
existence of cognitively based story grammars or narrative rule sys­
tems. Such grammars were cast as formal representations of the cogni-
tive mechanisms used to parse stories into sets of units (e.g. settings
and episodes) and principles for sequencing and embedding those units
(for a fuller discussion, cf. Herman 2002: 10–13). Roughly contempor­
aneously with the advent of story grammars, research in Artificial Intel­
ligence also began to focus attention on the cognitive basis for creating
and understanding stories. Schank & Abelson’s (1977) foundational
work explored how stereotypical knowledge reduces the complexity
and duration of many processing tasks, including the interpretation of
narrative. Indeed, the concept of script, i.e. a type of knowledge repre-
sentation that allows an expected sequence of events to be stored in the
memory, was designed to explain how people are able to build up com­
plex interpretations of stories on the basis of very few textual or dis­
course cues (→ schemata). Whereas the term “scripts” was used to
refer to kinds of world-knowledge that generate expectations about
how sequences of events are supposed to unfold, “frames” referred to
expectations about how domains of experience are likely to be struc­
tured at a given moment in time (Goffman 1974). Frames guide my ex­
pectations about the objects and decor that I am likely to find in a uni­
versity classroom as opposed to a prison cell; scripts guide my expecta­
tions about what I can expect to happen while ordering a beer in a bar
as opposed to defending a doctoral dissertation.
Although subsequent research on knowledge representations sug­
gests the limits as well as the possibilities of the original frame and
script concepts (Sternberg 2003 provides a critical review), this early
work has shaped cognitive narratology from its inception, informing
the study of how particular features of narrative discourse cue particu­
lar kinds of processing strategies. Indeed, Jahn’s (1997) foundational
essay in the field, mentioned above, draws on Minsky’s (1975) account
of frames (among other relevant research) to redescribe from a cogni-
tive perspective key aspects of Stanzel’s (1979) theory of narrative. In
Jahn’s proposal, higher-order knowledge representations or frames en­
 Cognitive Narratology 34

able interpreters of stories to disambiguate pronominal references, de­

cide whether a given sentence serves a descriptive or a thought-report­
ing function (e.g. depending on context “the train was late” might
either be a thought mulled over by a character or part of the narrator’s
own account of the narrated world), and, more generally, adopt a top-
down as well as a bottom-up approach to narrative processing. A frame
guides interpretation until such time as textual cues prompt the modi­
fication or substitution of that frame.
In a similar vein, other theorists have explored how experiential rep­
ertoires, stored in the form of scripts, enable readers or listeners of
stories to “fill in the blanks” and assume that if a narrator mentions a
masked character running out of a bank with a satchel of money, then
that character has in all likelihood robbed the bank in question. Anal-
ysts have also discussed how literary narratives in particular involve
processes of script recruitment, disruption, and refreshment (Cook
1994; Herman 2002: 85–113; Stockwell 2002: 75–89), depending on
how critically and reflexively the narratives relate to prevailing scripts.
For her part, Emmott (1997) focuses on how what she calls contexts, or
spatiotemporal nodes inhabited by configurations of individuals and
entities, constrain pronoun interpretation. Information about contexts
attaches itself to mental representations that Emmott terms “contextual
frames.” An action performed by (or on) a given configuration of parti­
cipants is necessarily indexed to a particular context and must be
viewed within that context, even if the context is never fully reacti-
vated (after its initial mention) linguistically. For example, if a charac­
ter in a short story orders a beer in a bar, then even if elements of the
setting are not mentioned again readers can assume that subsequent
verbal and nonverbal actions performed by the character continue to
take place in the bar—until such time as linguistic signals cue a frame-
switch (e.g. “Several days later, he saw his friend […],” or “Later that
night, when he had reached his apartment […]”). Finally, Palmer
(2004) also draws on elements of the early work on knowledge repre-
sentations, studying how readers’ world-knowledge allows them to
make sense of a variety of techniques for representing fictional charac­
ters’ minds. Palmer explores how readers construct inferences about
fictional minds by using various textual indicators, including thought
reports, speech representations, and descriptions of behaviors that span
the continuum linking mental with physical actions.
More generally, a cluster of publications appeared in the second
half of the 1990s, all of them adding impetus to the “cognitive turn” in
narrative studies that had been prepared for by research conducted in
the 1970s and 1980s and that had been directly anticipated by Turner
35 Cognitive Narratology

(1991). 1996 saw the appearance of Fludernik’s richly synthetic ac­

count of natural narratology, which integrates ideas from literary narra­
tology, the history of English language and literature, research on nat-
ural-language narratives told in face-to-face communication, and cogni-
tive linguistics to isolate “experientiality,” or the felt, subjective aware­
ness of an experiencing mind, as a core property of → narrativity. Tur-
ner’s (1996) own extrapolation from cognitive-linguistic models of me-
taphor to account for human intelligence in terms of parabolic projec­
tions, or the mapping of source stories onto target stories to make sense
of the world, was also published in 1996. The year before, the influen­
tial volume Deixis in Narrative had appeared (Duchan et al. eds. 1995);
contributions to this volume characterize narrative comprehension in
terms of deictic shifts, whereby interpreters shift from the spatiotem­
poral coordinates of the here-and-now to various cognitive vantage-
points that they are cued to occupy by textual signals distributed in nar­
rative discourse (Ryan 1991; Werth 1999).
This spate of publications over a five-year period (the list is by no
means exhaustive) helps explain why the inaugural 2000 issue of the
online journal Image [&] Narrative focused on cognitive narratology.
It also helps account for the organization, just after the turn of the cen­
tury, of a number of edited volumes, special journal issues, and confer­
ences exploring intersections among cognition, literature, and culture
as well as cognitive approaches to narrative in particular (e.g. Abbott
ed. 2001; Richardson & Steen eds. 2002; Herman ed. 2003; Richardson
& Spolsky eds. 2004). During the same period, theorists formulated a
number of pertinent objections to (or at least reservations about) what
Richardson & Steen termed a “cognitive revolution” in the study of lit­
erature and culture (Jackson 2005; Sternberg 2003). In particular, as
noted in 4 below, scholars who remain skeptical about cognitive ap­
proaches to literature and culture in general, and about cognitive narra­
tology in particular, question the degree to which work of this kind rep­
resents true interdisciplinary convergence—as opposed to the selective
(and sometimes ill-informed) borrowing of ideas and methods tailored
to problem domains in other fields.

3.2 Emergent Trends in the Field

It is still too early in the development of cognitive narratology to

identify what its most important contributions to the broader field of
narratology may eventually prove to be. Nonetheless, the present sub­
section provides a partial catalogue of pertinent studies, with the fol­
lowing subsections focusing on several areas in which research activity
 Cognitive Narratology 36

has already been especially productive. Relevant research includes:

(a) cognitively inflected accounts of narrative → perspective in fiction­

al and nonfictional texts (van Peer & Chatman eds. 2001; Jahn
1996, 1999; Herman 2009b);
(b) research on representations of the minds of characters and on the
classes of textual cues that prompt readers to draw particular kinds
of inferences about the contents and dispositions of those minds
(Butte 2004; Cohn 1978; Herman 2007a; Palmer 2004; Zunshine
2006);
(c) studies of emotions and emotion discourse and how they both illu­
minate and are illuminated by particular narrative texts as well as
broader narrative traditions (Herman 2007b; Hogan 2003a);
(d) research on the range of cognitive processes that support inferences
about the spatiotemporal profile of a given storyworld, and about
the degree to which a given text or representation can be assimil­
ated to the category “narrative”—that is, assigned at least some de­
gree of narrativity—in the first place (Fludernik 1996; Gerrig
1993; Herman 2002, 2009a; Hogan 2003b: 115–39; Jahn 1997;
Ryan 1991, 2003);
(e) research on the textual as well as cognitive factors underlying the
key effects of narrative suspense, curiosity, and surprise, and more
broadly on how the temporal order in which elements of a narrative
are encountered can shape interpreters’ overall sense of a story­
world (Gerrig 1993; Perry 1979; Sternberg 1978, 1990, 1992);
(f) research more generally on phenomena pertaining to the interface
between narratives and the mind-brain of the interpreter, such as
the activation of “identity themes” (Holland 1975) or the (poten­
tial) stimulation of empathetic responses (Keen 2007)—in other
words, attempts to formulate what Eder (2003) terms “cognitive re­
ception theories”;
(g) studies of narrative as a resource for navigating and making sense
of computer-mediated environments (Ryan 2001, 2006);
(h) empirical studies that, relying on techniques ranging from the
measuring of reading times to methods of corpus analysis to the
elicitation of diagrams of storyworlds, seek to establish demon­
strable correlations between what Bortolussi & Dixon (2003) term
“text features” and “text effects”—i.e. between textual structures
and the processing strategies that they set into play (Gerrig 1993;
Ryan 2003; Herman 2005); and
(i) intermedial research suggesting that narrative functions as a cogni-
tive “macroframe” enabling interpreters to identify stories or story-
37 Cognitive Narratology

like elements across any number of semiotic media (→ mediacy

and narrative mediation)—literary, pictorial, musical, etc. (Wolf
2003; Ryan ed. 2004; Herman 2009a).

Several of these initiatives can be singled out as especially generative

for cognitive-narratological research: namely, study of the cognitive
processes underlying interpreters’ ability to construct (and immerse
themselves more or less fully within) storyworlds; research on issues
pertaining to consciousness representation; and, relatedly, analyses of
emotion and emotion discourse vis-à-vis stories and storytelling.

3.2.1 Narrative Ways of Worldmaking: Cognitive Dimensions

Mapping words onto worlds is a fundamental—perhaps the fundamen-
tal—requirement for narrative sense making. Approaches such as deict­
ic shift theory (Duchan et al. eds. 1995) and contextual frame theory
help reveal the complex cognitive processes underlying narrative ways
of worldmaking; they also suggest how configuring narrative worlds
entails mapping discourse cues onto the WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN factors
whose interplay accounts for the ontological make-up and spatiotem­
poral profile of a given storyworld. An approach based on shifting
deictic centers indicates how narrative worlds are structured around
cognitive vantage points that may change over the course of an unfold­
ing story. Likewise, based on the assumption that characters will be
bound into and out of particular contexts over time as well as the as­
sumption that such contexts will be distributed spatially as well as tem­
porally, Emmott’s (1997) contextual frame theory points to the nexus
of the WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN factors in narrative worldmaking.
Furthermore, reconsidered from a cognitive-narratological perspec-
tive, earlier narratological scholarship can be read anew, providing fur­
ther insight into the cognitive processes underlying the (re)construction
of narrative worlds. Genette’s (1972) influential account of time in nar­
rative, for example, can be motivated as a heuristic framework for
studying the WHEN component of world creation (→ time). When
Genette distinguishes between simultaneous, retrospective, prospec-
tive, and “intercalated” modes of narration (as in the epistolary novel,
where the act of narration postdates some events but precedes others),
these narrative modes can now be interpreted in light of the different
kinds of structure that they afford for worldmaking. Retrospective nar­
ration accommodates the full scope of a storyworld’s history, allowing
a narrator to signal connections between earlier and later events
through proleptic foreshadowings of the eventual impact of a charac­
ter’s actions on his or her cohorts. Simultaneous narration, in which
 Cognitive Narratology 38

events are presented in tandem with the interpreter’s effort to compre­

hend the contours and boundaries of the narrated domain, does not al­
low for such anticipations-in-hindsight; rather, inferences about the im­
pact of events on the storyworld remain tentative, probabilistic, open-
ended (Margolin 1999). In short, classical, structuralist accounts like
Genette’s suggest how a narrative world is “thickened” by forays back­
ward and forward in time and throws into relief the processing
strategies triggered by such temporal agglutination (Sternberg 1978,
1990, 1992).

3.2.2 Issues of Consciousness Representation

In her foundational study of strategies for representing consciousness
in narrative fiction, Cohn (1978) draws on theories of → speech repre-
sentation as the basis for her account of how narrative texts afford ac­
cess to fictional minds. Just as narratives can use direct discourse, in­
direct discourse, and free indirect discourse to present the utterances of
characters, fictional texts can use what Cohn calls quoted monologue,
psycho-narration, and narrated monologue to represent the thought pro­
cesses of fictional minds. Subsequent theorists, seeking to underscore
even more clearly the assumed analogy between modes of speech and
thought representation, have renamed Cohn’s three modes as direct
thought, indirect thought, and free indirect thought, respectively (Leech
& Short 1981). As Palmer (2004) notes, however, this classical or
“speech category” approach captures only some of the phenomena rel­
evant for research on narrative representations of consciousness. For
Palmer, the speech-category approach has induced analysts to focus
solely on inner speech, with the result that theories of consciousness
representation in narrative have been “distorted by the grip of the
verbal norm” (53). Yet narrative understanding in fact hinges on a wide
variety of inferences about the states, dispositions, and processes of fic­
tional minds—including inferences about the felt, subjective nature of
their experience (i.e. the “qualia” specific to their particularized vant­
age-point on the storyworld [Nagel 1974]) as well as their folk psycho­
logy, or method for framing inferences about what is going on in their
own and others’ minds.
When characters use folk-psychological models to explain their own
and others’ motivations and intentions, they are drawing on fundamen-
tal, generic processes by which humans attribute mental states, proper­
ties, and dispositions both to themselves and to their social cohorts.
These processes have been described as the native “Theory of Mind” in
terms of which people make sense of their cohorts’ behavior (Zunshine
2006). At issue is people’s everyday understanding of how thinking
39 Cognitive Narratology

works, the rough-and-ready heuristics to which they resort in thinking

about thinking itself—a heuristics used to impute motives or goals to
self and other and to make predictions about future reactions to events.
Such thinking about thinking points beyond inner speech and solitary
self-communings to the “social mind in action” that Palmer identifies
as the object of study for postclassical approaches to consciousness
representation (2004: 130–69).

3.2.3 Emotion, Emotion Discourse, and “Emotionology”

As Stearns (1995) points out, there is a basic tension between naturalist
and constructionist approaches to emotion. Naturalists argue for the ex­
istence of innate, biologically grounded emotions that are more or less
uniform across cultures and subcultures (Hogan 2003a). By contrast,
constructionists argue that emotions are culturally specific (Stearns
1995). As Adolphs (2005) suggests, however, the naturalist and con­
structionist positions can be reconciled if emotions are viewed as (a)
shaped by evolutionary processes and implemented in the brain, but
also (b) situated in a complex network of stimuli, behavior, and other
cognitive states. Because of (b), the shared stock of emotional re­
sponses is mediated by culturally specific learning processes. Further,
to study the cultural and rhetorical grounding of emotion discourse,
theorists working at the intersection of psychology, history, and ethno­
graphy have developed the concept of “emotionology,” which concerns
the collective emotional standards of a culture as opposed to the expe-
rience of emotion itself. The term functions in parallel with recent us­
ages of ontology to designate a model of the entities, together with
their properties and relations, that exist within a particular domain.
Every culture and subculture has an emotionology, which is a frame­
work for conceptualizing emotions, their causes, and how participants
in discourse are likely to display them.
Narratives, which at once ground themselves in and help build
frameworks of this sort, provide insight into a culture’s or subculture’s
emotionology—and also into how members of the (sub)culture use
these systems to make sense of minds. Everyday storytelling as well as
literary narratives deploy and in some cases thematize emotion terms
and concepts; for example, spy thrillers, and romance novels are recog­
nizable as such because of the way they link particular kinds of emo­
tions to recurrent narrative scenarios. What is more, stories also have
the power to (re)shape emotionology itself. Narrative therapy, for in­
stance, involves the construction of stories about the self in which the
emotional charge habitually carried by particular actions or routines
can be defused or at least redirected (Mills 2005).
 Cognitive Narratology 40

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) Eder (2003: 284 n. 14) sets up a scale of seven possible relation­
ships between cognitive reception theories and narratology. These pos­
sibilities run the gamut from impossibility to unrelated coexistence to
the outright assimilation of narratology to cognitive theory. A more
general question can be extrapolated from Eder’s analysis: to what ex­
tent does the research conducted to date warrant commitment to the
possibility of integrating narratological theory with ideas from the cog­
nitive sciences? (b) Relatedly, Sternberg (2003) has raised questions
about the degree to which cognitive narratology enables true methodo­
logical convergence among the domains of inquiry that it encompasses.
Part of the problem lies in the attempt to translate foundational con­
cepts such as “frames” and “scripts,” “emotion,” and even “narrative”
across what remains for Sternberg a disciplinary divide between hu­
manistic and social-scientific research. As this critique suggests, if cog­
nitive narratology is to become a bonafide inter-discipline, it must
work toward combining its source concepts and methods into a whole
which is greater—more capable of description and explanation—than
the sum of its parts.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Abbott, H. Porter, ed. (2001). “On the Origins of Fiction: Interdisciplinary Perspec-
tives.” Special issue of SubStance 30.1.
Adolphs, Ralph (2005). “Could a Robot Have Emotions? Theoretical Perspective from
Social Cognitive Neuroscience.” M. Arbib & J.-M. Fellous (eds). Who Needs Emo­
tions: The Brain Meets the Robot. Oxford: Oxford UP, 9–28.
Barthes, Roland ([1966] 1977). “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives.”
Image Music Text. New York: Hill & Wang, 79–124.
Bortolussi, Marisa & Peter Dixon (2003). Psychonarratology: Foundations for the
Empirical Study of Literary Response. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Butte, George (2004). I know That You Know That I Know: Narrating Subjects from
Moll Flanders to Marnie. Columbus: Ohio State UP.
Cohn, Dorrit (1978). Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Conscious­
ness in Fiction. Princeton: Princeton UP.
Cook, Guy (1994). Discourse and Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Culler, Jonathan (1975). “Literary Competence” & “Convention and Naturalization.”
J. C. Structuralist Poetics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 113−30 & 131−60.
Duchan, Judith F., et al. eds. (1995). Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Per­
spective. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
41 Cognitive Narratology

Eder, Jens (2003). “Narratology and Cognitive Reception Theories.” T. Kindt & H.-H.
Müller (eds). What Is Narratology? Questions and Answers Regarding the Status
of a Theory. Berlin: de Gruyer, 277–301.
Emmott, Catherine (1997). Narrative Comprehension: A Discourse Perspective. Ox­
ford: Oxford UP.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
Gerrig, Richard J. (1993). Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activ­
ities of Reading. New Haven: Yale UP.
Goffman, Erving (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience.
New York: Harper & Row.
Herman, David (1999). “Introduction.” D. H. (ed). Narratologies: New Perspectives on
Narrative Analysis. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1–30.
– (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln: U of Neb­
raska P.
– (2003). “Stories as a Tool for Thinking.” D. H. (ed). Narrative Theory and the
Cognitive Sciences. Stanford: CSLI, 163–92.
– (2005). “Quantitative Methods in Narratology: A Corpus-based Study of Motion
Events in Stories.” J. Ch. Meister (ed). Narratology Beyond Literary Criticism.
Mediality, Disciplinarity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 125–49.
– (2007a). “Cognition, Emotion, and Consciousness.” D. H. (ed). The Cambridge
Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 245–59.
– (2007b). “Storytelling and the Sciences of Mind: Cognitive Narratology, Discursive
Psychology, and Narratives in Face-to-Face Interaction.” Narrative 15, 306–34.
– (2009a). Basic Elements of Narrative. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
– (2009b). “Beyond Voice and Vision: Cognitive Grammar and Focalization
Theory.” P. Hühn et al. (eds). Point of View, Perspective, and Focalization: Model­
ing Mediacy in Narrative. Berlin: de Gruyter, 119–42.
– ed. (2003). Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences. Stanford: CSLI.
Hogan, Patrick Colm (2003a). The Mind and Its Stories: Narrative Universals and Hu­
man Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
– (2003b). Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts: A Guide for Humanists. Lon­
don: Routledge.
Holland, Norman (1975). 5 Readers Reading. New Haven: Yale UP.
Ingarden, Roman ([1931] 1973). The Literary Work of Art. Evanston: Northwestern
UP.
Iser, Wolfgang ([1972] 1974). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in
Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Jackson, Tony E. (2005). “Explanation, Interpretation, and Close Reading: The Pro­
gress of Cognitive Poetics.” Poetics Today 26, 519–33.
Jahn, Manfred (1996). “Windows of Focalization: Deconstructing and Reconstructing a
Narratological Concept.” Style 30, 241–67.
– (1997). “Frames, Preferences, and the Reading of Third-Person Narratives: Toward
a Cognitive Narratology.” Poetics Today 18, 441–68.
 Cognitive Narratology 42

– (1999). “More Aspects of Focalization: Refinements and Applications.” J. Pier

(ed). Recent Trends in Narratological Research. Tours: GRAAT, 85–110.
Jauss, Hans Robert ([1977] 1982). Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Minneapolis: U
of Minnesota P.
Keen, Suzanne (2007). Empathy and the Novel. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Leech, Geoffrey & Michael Short (1981). Style in Fiction. London: Longman.
Mandler, Jean Matter (1984). Stories, Scripts, and Scenes: Aspects of Schema Theory.
Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Margolin, Uri (1999). “Of What Is Past, Is Passing, or to Come: Temporality, Aspectu­
ality, Modality, and the Nature of Narrative.” D. Herman (ed) Narratologies: New
Perspectives on Narrative Analysis. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 142–66.
Mills, Linda (2005). “Narrative Therapy.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclo­
pedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 375–76.
Minsky, Marvin (1975). “A Framework for Representing Knowledge.” P. Winston (ed).
The Psychology of Computer Vision. New York: McGraw-Hill, 211–77.
Nagel, Thomas (1974). “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” Philosophical Review 83, 435–
50.
Palmer, Alan (2004). Fictional Minds. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Perry, Menakhem (1979). “Literary Dynamics: How the Order of a Text Creates Its
Meanings.” Poetics Today 1.1/2, 35–64, 311–61.
Richardson, Alan & Ellen Spolsky, ed. (2004). The Work of Fiction: Cognition, Cul­
ture, and Complexity. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Richardson, Alan & Francis F. Steen, ed. (2002). “Literature and the Cognitive Revolu­
tion.” Special issue of Poetics Today 23.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
– (2001). Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and
Electronic Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
– (2003). “Cognitive Maps and the Construction of Narrative Space.” D. Herman
(ed). Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences. Stanford: CSLI, 214–42.
– (2006). Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
– ed. (2004). Narrative across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U of
Nebraska P.
Schank, Roger C. & Robert P. Abelson (1977). Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understand­
ing: An Inquiry into Human Knowledge Structures. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Stanzel, Franz K. ([1979] 1984). A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Stearns, Peter (1995). “Emotion.” R. Harré & P. Stearns (eds). Discursive Psychology
in Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 37–54.
Sternberg, Meir (1978). Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction. Bal­
timore: Johns Hopkins UP.
– (1990). “Telling in Time (I): Chronology and Narrative Theory.” Poetics Today 11,
901–48.
– (1992). “Telling in Time (II): Chronology, Teleology, Narrativity.” Poetics Today
13, 463–541.
– (2003). “Universals of Narrative and Their Cognitivist Fortunes (I).” Poetics Today
24, 297–395.
43 Cognitive Narratology

Stockwell, Peter (2002). Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. London: Routledge.

Tompkins, Jane, ed. (1980). Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-
Structuralism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Turner, Mark (1991). Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive
Science. Princeton: Princeton UP.
– (1996). The Literary Mind. Oxford: Oxford UP.
van Peer, Willie & Seymour Chatman, eds. (2001). New Perspectives on Narrative
Perspective. Albany: State U of New York P.
Werth, Paul (1999). Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. Lon­
don: Longman.
Wolf, Werner (2003). “Narrative and Narrativity: A Narratological Reconceptualization
and Its Applicability to the Visual Arts.” Word [&] Image 19, 180–97.
Zunshine, Lisa (2006). Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Colum­
bus: Ohio State UP.

5.2 Further Reading

Brockmeier, Jens & Donal Carbaugh, eds. (2001). Narrative and Identity: Studies in
Autobiography, Self and Culture. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Bruner, Jerome (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Herman, David (2009). “Cognitive Approaches to Narrative Analysis.” G. Brône & J.
Vandaele (eds). Cognitive Poetics: Goals, Gains, and Gaps. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter, 79–118.
Jahn, Manfred (2005). “Cognitive Narratology.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge En­
cyclopedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 67–71.
Vygotsky, Lev S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological
Processes. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
 Coherence
Michael Toolan

1 Definition

As a technical term, as distinct from its use in cultural activities to de­

note a range of qualities deemed desirable (e.g. clarity, orderliness,
reasonableness, logicality, “making sense,” and even persuasiveness),
coherence has tended to be regarded as a textlinguistic (TL) notion.
From its everyday senses, textlinguistic coherence has inherited some
defining criteria, in particular the assumption that it denotes those qual­
ities in the structure and design of a text that prompt language users to
judge that “everything fits,” that the identified textual parts all contrib­
ute to a whole, which is communicationally effective. But there has al­
ways been a tension in the linguistic analysis of coherence, rooted in
the recognition that TL “rules” for textual coherence (e.g. rules of an-
aphora, norms of paragraphing and paragraph structure) are inevitably
general and therefore insensitive to the unique contextual pressures of
the particular text, on the one hand, while on the other, judgments of
coherence are very much based on what addressees assess as relevant
and informative in the unique discoursal circumstances of the individu­
al text. This tension is often summarized as a distinction between
(purely linguistic) cohesion and (contextualized) coherence: the former
is neither necessary nor sufficient for the latter, even if it is normally a
main contributory feature (de Beaugrande & Dressler 1981; Giora
1985). In broad terms, it is now widely recognized that coherence is
ulti-mately a pragmatically-determined quality, requiring close atten­
tion to the specific sense made of the text in the cultural context. This
might suggest that determining coherence is a simple matter of apply­
ing common sense in context; but narratives often go beyond common
sense, that transcending being crucial to their importance and tellabili-
ty, so that narratological studies of coherence suggest common sense is
not a sufficient guide.
45 Coherence

2 Explication

Although it is not usually foremost among the interests of narratolo­

gists, coherence is implicitly regarded as an important feature of narra-
tive. All formalist, structuralist, or psycholingistic modelings of story
and discourse that propose any kind of morphology or grammar (those
of Propp, Barthes, Genette, Greimas, Mandler & Johnson 1977, Thorn­
dyke 1977, Stein & Glenn 1979, to name only a selection) can be
viewed as including elements regarded as essential to narrative coher­
ence. For TL, it is often convenient to identify particular main subtypes
of coherence, such as temporal, causal, and thematic coherence as well
as topic-maintenance and -furtherance. Because of general expectations
of unity, continuity and perseveration in story topic, coherent narrative
seems to involve a healthy amount of repetition and near repetition
(repetition with alteration), including forms of lexical repetition and se­
mantic recurrence. Thus Chatman (1978: 30–1) mentions the assump­
tion of perseveration of identity with respect to naming of characters
(→ character) as a kind of coherence automatically relied on in narra-
tives: if there is a sequence of mentions of Peter falling ill, later dying,
later being buried, it is assumed these refer to one and the same Peter.
Some sense of the continuity of existents—hence of assumed co-refer­
ence where there are multiple mentions of a single name—is the norm.
On the other hand, abundance of quasi-repetitive language seems to be
the cohesive corollary—in extended texts such as literary narratives—
of the coherence requirement of unified connectedness. However, no
simple standard of topic or thematic unity and continuity will apply
generally. In actuality, in narratives as in other forms of discourse, the
norm is for there to be multiple topics, complexly related to each other,
so that the local absence of maintenance of topic A by no means cre­
ates incoherence (where topic B or C is being developed).
Perhaps more than anything else, narratological studies of coher­
ence highlight the insufficiency of a “common sense” approach to the
issue. It is perfectly true that stories that defy normal expectations
about time, intention, goal, causality, or closure may fail to elicit in­
terest and be judged incoherent or incomplete by some readers; but
these departures from the norm, singly or jointly, do not invariably lead
to incoherence. Similarly, narratologists recognize that a story that be­
gins at the chronological end, then jumps to the chronological begin­
ning, moves forward two years from that point, and then moves back­
ward one month, and so on may be difficult to follow. Difficulties of
reader-processing caused by achronological narration, or under-ex­
plained shifts in setting or character, even when extreme, do not invari­
 Coherence 46

ably amount to incoherence, either. And, as McAdams (2006: 113) re­

minds us, norms concerning narrative coherence can vary considerably
from one society or culture to the next; these expectations are also de­
pendent on period and genre (cf. Jauss 1977 on “horizons of expecta­
tion” and Culler 1975 on “naturalization”).

3 History of the Concept and its Study

A history of the concept of narrative coherence must begin with men­

tion of Aristotle’s Poetics, which insists on completeness of plot with a
beginning, a middle, and an end, unity of incident, the episode as cen-
tral to tragedy, and structure by means of complication followed by un­
raveling or denouement: “the muthos must imitate a single, unified and
complete sequence of action. Its incidents must be organised in such a
way that if any is removed or has its position changed, the whole is dis­
located and disjointed. If something can be added or taken away
without any obvious effect, it is not intrinsic to the whole” (1416a 31–
4). Other major landmarks in Western discourse on coherence in nar­
rative or drama include promotion of the “three unities” in 17th-century
neo-classicism (and put into practice in the plays of Corneille and Ra­
cine); Aristotle was invoked, but prescriptively, demanding unity of
time, place, and action. In other dramatic traditions, however, such re­
strictive requirements were freely ignored (e.g. Shakespeare). In the
modern period, Poe’s (1846) poetics of composition, with its advocacy
of brevity, hidden craft, and unity of effect, can be mentioned with ref­
erence to narrative coherence, as can Propp’s (1928) morphological
modeling of the folktale, Lämmert’s (1955) “forms of narrative con­
struction,” Stanzel’s (1955, 1979) narrative situations, several of the
articles in the landmark volume 8 (1966) of the review Communica­
tions, Prince’s (1973) narrative grammar, van Dijk’s treatment of text
grammars (1972), and some work by Todorov (1971, 1978) as well as
his foundational narrative grammar of the Decameron (1969).

3.1 Coherence in Textlinguistic Studies

Halliday & Hasan’s (1976) study of cohesion in English is often cited

as a pioneering enquiry into the key resources in a language for under­
pinning textual coherence, indeed for the creation of genuine text. They
look chiefly at inter-sentential grammatical mechanisms (e.g. means of
co-reference via personal and indefinite pronouns, projecting of re­
latedness via retrievable ellipsis, use of sense-conveying sentential con­
junctions), and they also comment, less systematically, on how texts
47 Coherence

display coherence by elaborate means of lexical collocation and asso-

ciation. Despite a generally enthusiastic welcome for their work, lin­
guists were quick to emphasize that cohesion seemed neither necessary
nor sufficient for textual coherence (particularly in the case of short,
deeply situationally-embedded “texts”). More importantly, Halliday &
Hasan, like other grammarians, do not fully address the specific de­
mands of cohesion and coherence of narrative. De Beaugrande &
Dressler (1981) remains an important and still influential overview of
text structure which delineates seven standards of “textuality”: (a) co­
hesion (mutually connected elements of the surface text); (b) coherence
(the configuration of concepts and relations which underlie the surface
text); (c) intentionality (instrumentalizing of cohesion and coherence
according to the producer’s intention); (d) acceptability (use or rele-
vance of the cohesive and coherent text to the receiver); (e) informativ­
ity (degree to which the occurrences of the text are (un)expected or
(un)known); (f) situationality (relevance of a text to a situation); (g) in­
tertextuality (presupposed knowledge of one or more previous texts).
There are many exemplifications, in the linguistic and discourse
analytic literature, of discourse deemed to have cohesion without co­
herence, or the reverse. One of the better known comes in Brown &
Yule (1983), where the doorbell rings at the apartment of a couple, A
and B. A says to B: “There’s the doorbell.” B replies: “I’m in the bath.”
Here, the total absence of textual cohesive links between the two utter­
ances does not prevent B’s response being entirely coherent. Brown &
Yule ascribe the coherence of the AB exchange above to assumed “se­
mantic relations” between the utterances, which relations must lean
heavily on familiar schemata or cultural “scripts.” Such mental chal­
lenges seem quite slight, however, by comparison with the challenges
to sense-making posed by contemporary fictional narration and dia­
logue by writers like DeLillo (e.g. in Underworld) and Mamet (e.g. the
opening of his play Oleanna, in which just one half, highly elliptical,
of a lengthy telephone conversation is accessible to the playgoer or
reader). And these texts in turn are considerably more accessible, co­
herence-minded, than many narrative poems published during the last
hundred years.
Innumerable linguists have grappled over the years with the topic of
discourse coherence and its bases. One of the richer overviews remains
that of Brown & Yule (1983), which contains many observations ori­
ented to helping clarify what makes for discourse coherence (a more
recent introductory text, also containing valuable discussion of coher­
ence, is Georgakopoulou & Goutsos 1997). Brown & Yule emphasize
the inherent contextualization that accompanies any verbal text and the
 Coherence 48

role of normal expectations, shaping memories of past verbal material

and the initial efforts at interpreting newly-encountered language.
The sections of Halliday & Hasan (1976) devoted to lexis can be
seen as an early attempt to systematize Firth’s collocational text­
linguistic thesis; also relevant is the work of Sinclair & Coulthard
(1975). Firthian collocational ideas have recently been elaborated in a
different direction in Hoey’s theory of lexical priming (Hoey 2005),
which argues that for a large number of texts conforming to one genre
or another, language users are primed to expect certain patterns of
word-choice, appearing at certain points (and not others) in the sen­
tence, in the paragraph, and in the discourse structure. But as already
indicated, linguistic form is not always necessary to achieve coherence:
“part of discourse competence involves an ability to discover discourse
coherence where it is not evident in the surface lexical or propositional
cohesion” (Stubbs 1983: 179).
Citing the doting parents of babbling infants as simply an extreme
example of “interpretive charity,” Brown & Yule emphasise the human
bias in favor of assuming a coherent message amenable to coherent in­
terpretation. Addressees “naturally” attribute relevance and coherence
to any text or discourse until evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
Echoing Grice (1975), they argue that a rational assumption of rele-
vance has shaped any speaker’s (or writer’s) contribution. Where an ut­
terance’s relevance, orderliness, informativeness and truthfulness is not
obvious, a search for their covert presence is warranted. A corollary of
this is that a speaker or writer can be assumed to be continuing to speak
or write of the same spatiotemporal setting and the same characters, un­
less a change is explicitly signaled. Most fundamentally, humans “nat­
urally assume coherence, and interpret the text in the light of that as­
sumption. They assume, that is, that the principles of analogy [things
will tend to be as they were before: MT] and local interpretation [if
there is a change, assume it is minimal: MT] constrain the experience”
(Brown & Yule 1983: 66–7). For such reasons, Yaron has argued that
analysts should calibrate texts in terms of their displaying “high or low
degrees of explicit coherence. Differentiating thus would make it pos­
sible to include among coherent texts those that the reader has imbued
with implicit connections” (Yaron 2008: 139). As Bublitz (1999: 2) re­
cognizes in his somewhat negatively-phrased definition, coherence is
“a cognitive category that depends on the language user’s interpretation
and is not an invariant property of discourse.”
We should not overstate the contrast between those who study co­
herence as a linguistic property of texts and those who focus on the dis­
course reception and the addressee’s attributing of coherence to a text,
49 Coherence

guided by cultural norms, cognitive scripts and schemata. There is of­

ten no fundamental opposition between the two approaches, but rather
a division of labor and of disciplinary interest; some contributions at­
tempt to combine TL and cognitive or receptionist concerns (e.g. cer­
tain approaches to → narrativity, Emmott 1997 on comprehension,
Toolan 2009 on narrative progression). Ultimately, very much the same
point can be made regarding coherence in narratives and narration as is
made concerning narratological accounts of → events and eventful­
ness. In the latter, the point is made that many accounts are vulnerable
to the criticism that they appeal largely to textual structure, whereas ul­
timately cultural norms and expectations cannot be excluded from the
calculation of eventfulness (see Hühn 2008). Similarly, an entirely text-
immanent treatment (or grammar) of narrative coherence seems only
locally possible, relative to particular genres or culture-specific types
of narrative, rather than universally valid. And even here, like any
grammar, the norms are susceptible to variation and change. Thus any­
thing approximating a grammar of narrative coherence will sooner or
later fail, by virtue of its insensitivity to context. Lesser & Milroy
(1993) make this point concerning discourse coherence generally: not­
withstanding certain kinds of familiar scripts and stereotyped sit-
uations, top-down models which attempt to extend syntactic analytic
methods, by postulating a set of rules by reference to which discourses
can be judged ill-formed or coherent, have tended to fail. Discourse
and discourse coherence is so often a joint production, influenced by
context and assumed background knowledge, that decontextualized
standards for the specifying of coherence are unsatisfactory.
For all the above reasons, we must conclude that coherence and full
interpretation of a text often requires that we have access to more than
the text alone. As Georgakopoulou & Goutsos ([1997] 2004: 16) note,
we often need to know “who the text-producer is, what the intended
audience is, what the time and place of text-production and reception
are […] and the purpose or function of the text in the speech com­
munity in which it has been created.” One of the challenges and in­
terests of much literary narration, however, lies in the radical under-
specification or unreliability of answers to many of these questions.
Literary narratives give rise to much-debated uncertainty concerning
“who speaks?” in particular stories or passages, where and when events
are reported to have taken place (in which storyworld?), and for what
purpose; much of this is dependent on genre and text-type conventions
and their cultural and historical variation.
 Coherence 50

3.2 Degrees of Coherence

There are degrees of TL cohesion, and more importantly, according to

addressee judgments, degrees of coherence, ranging from the minimal
to the maximal. Additionally, broad user assumptions about the sub-
type of text involved help to guide or constrain coherence norms and
expectations. In the case of narratives, such generic norms include the
presence of story or plot, of an inter-related event sequence, of focus
on one or a few characters undergoing change, and of a situation of sta­
bility developing a disequilibrium following which a renewed but
altered equilibrium emerges (closure).
As implied above, there are arguably minimal and maximal notions
of coherence, as this concept has been developed and applied in lin­
guistics generally and narrative studies in particular. Minimal or basic
coherence is that property attributed to sequences of utterances or sen­
tences, in a particular context of speaking or writing, which prompts
participants or observers to judge that the full sequence “makes sense,”
fits together, and forms a (spoken or written) text. The implied contrast
is with randomly assembled phrases or sentences or utterances having
no discernible sense of connection between them, being merely the
parts from which various (different) texts might be assembled. Any text
is coherent or projects coherence if it is interpretable as parts compris­
ing an effective or useable whole. The more particular interest here is
in what constitutes a whole narrative text (as distinct from a text of no
particular kind). An immediate complication, in the creation or design­
ing for coherence in texts generally, and perhaps especially in narra-
tives, is the elliptical, the implied, the unsaid but inferable or adducible
(such that a text has a covert wholeness). Prototype theory (Rosch
1978; Bortolussi & Dixon 2003) has been shown to be relevant to pro­
jections of narrative coherence; typification as an interpretive resource
is very important in Stanzel 1955; and many approaches to inferability
and its putative steps or degrees have been proposed: see Ingarden
(1931) on reading as the creation of coherence; cf. also Schmid (2003)
on narrativity and eventfulness.
A maximal notion of coherence is invoked where analysts demand
that all the segments of a text (however that segmentation is imposed:
e.g. sentence by sentence, or shot by shot or scene by scene in film, or
in some other way) fit together in multiple respects, to the point that
every segment is deemed an indispensable part of the whole. But such
an absolute standard is neither usual nor even optimal. Longer or more
complex narratives where every segment fits and is indispensable for
coherence seem rare. In a novel or film of normal length, absence or
51 Coherence

presence of a few sentences or of a few shots—provided they are se­

mantically congruent with adjacent material—rarely causes significant
damage to the work’s perceived coherence; this would accord with
general linguistic principles of acceptable ellipsis and redundancy: not
everything needs to be “spelled out” in communication (interpreters
can tolerate reasonable gaps), but iterative statement is also often ac­
ceptable.
It may be that coherence is analogous to the main load-bearing
structure of a house, by contrast with various walls and materials
whose present or absence has little or no effect on the robustness of the
main building. By that reasoning, where the wall between the lounge
and the study is non-load-bearing, one might be inclined to say that “on
coherence grounds” it does not matter whether the wall is present or is
removed. And yet one might immediately make the rejoinder that, on
the contrary, a study without a wall sealing it off from the noisy
lounge, the site of informal sociality, is no longer a fully coherent or
coherently-functional study. So the limits and scope of coherence, in
buildings and in texts, is by no means a settled question.

3.3 Coherence in Psychological Studies

In the psychological literature relating to narrative representations, co­

herence is viewed as established by means of a collaboration of the text
(spoken or written) and the receiving mind of the listener or reader. But
the reader’s mental contribution is judged essential, so that coherence
is in effect “a mental entity” (Gernsbacher & Givón 1995: vii). A text
is deemed coherent if it is judged intelligible, with “no required materi­
al or information missing.” Immediately a clarification is needed, how­
ever: by “missing” here is meant “total absence from the text” without
reasonable possibility of retrieval by means of ellipsis-detection, infer­
ence, attention to relevant context and background knowledge, or simil­
ar textually-facilitated means. So the key contrast here, with respect to
coherence, is between contextually retrievable relevant information,
and contextually unretrievable relevant information: the more there ap­
pears to be of the latter, the less coherent the narrative will be. But
there seems to be no possibility of a fully autonomous and generaliz­
able set of prescriptions as to what will count as relevant but unretriev­
able in any particular case, even if addressee attention to prototypical
narrative patterns, genres, sub-genres, scripts, and cognitive frames can
help to delimit the problem space.
Narrative coherence is often regarded as the representation (or the
possibility of producing a representation) of the narrative under scru­
 Coherence 52

tiny as conforming to a “grammar” for the presentation, in licensed se­

quence, of a series of related events and states. But under a second
definition it is the representation (or possibility of representation, by
the reader/listener) of particular relations between the segments of a
narrative: e.g. seeing one segment as a consequence following a report-
ed cause, a further segment as an emotional response to a reported con­
sequence, and so on. Much psycholinguistic work on narrative is de­
voted to exploring the kinds and richness of inferencing that readers
make in the course of interpreting stories (cf. Emmott 1997; Emmott et
al. 2006; Gerrig 1993; Goldman et al. eds. 1999).

3.4 Creating a Storyworld

A more contemporary narratological approach to coherence might be

derived from the cognitivist idea that for full understanding and experi­
encing of a narrative, the interpreter must reconstruct a storyworld
(Ryan 1991; Gerrig 1993; Herman 2002, 2009) or mental model, a rich
projection of the entire, developing situation in which events, charac­
ters and their variously motivated actions are embedded. Where such
reconstruction or imagining is thwarted (e.g. by narratorial or charac­
ter-derived vagueness, unreliability, inconsistency, or even self-contra­
diction), then the sense of coherence is undermined. In these respects,
character is perhaps the most striking domain in which coherence with­
in the storyworld normally needs to be protected by the author: recent
work on characterization and narrative comprehension (Margolin 1983,
1990; Culpeper 2001; Emmott 1997; Werth 1999; Schneider 2001) has
done much to chart how interpreters draw on a text’s characterizations,
in interaction with the given or assumed background and non-specific
real-world knowledge, to understand and evaluate characters.
Also relevant here is the cognitive narratological idea of a narrative
storyworld (Herman 2002, 2009). But even the assumption of co-refer­
ence among uses of a proper name can be overridden, as in Faulkner’s
The Sound and the Fury, where there are two quite distinct Quentins
(uncle and niece). As Chatman implies, much of this inferencing is ba­
sic interpretation; it may be that narrative coherence is threatened or
damaged where “basic inferencing” of this kind cannot easily or obvi­
ously apply. Beyond consistency of naming, each character will be ex­
pected to be physically, emotionally and mentally self-consistent—
within reasonable or narrated limits. Thus a character at the close of a
novel may not be quite the same person disclosed, many years earlier in
the storyworld, at the novel’s opening; but the changes that are appar­
ent are congruent with the experiences also narrated, and the ambient
53 Coherence

conditions within the storyworld (if those conditions are fantastical or

magical realist ones, where a dead character can return to life in some
other form, then coherence may well be maintained). In short, the cri­
teria of coherence may change with genre, epoch, and culture.

3.5 The Pragmatics of Coherence: Cooperativeness and Relevance

Despite the steady advance in the descriptions of narrative coherence

from TL, cognitive linguistics, and psycholinguistics, it is to pragmat­
ics that many narrative analysts look for a general account of coher­
ence, and to the seminal ideas of Grice in particular. Grice (1975) pro­
pounds the idea that participants in a conversation are predisposed to
cooperate, making their contributions—all other things being equal—
suitably truthful, informative, relevant, and orderly; and, knowing this,
one party to a conversation is entitled and can be expected to derive
what Grice called “conversational implicatures” where another’s con­
tribution seems intentionally to diverge from reasonable truthfulness,
informativity, relevance, and orderliness. What Grice applied to ideal­
ized conversational meaning, others have extended with due qualifica­
tions and adjustments to other uses of language, including literature
(e.g. Pratt 1977; Watts 1981) and narrative (Bhaya Nair 2002; Borto-
lussi & Dixon 2003). On a par with Gricean conversational implicature
is the notion of narrative implicature: the reader of a narrative assumes
the general cooperativeness of the teller, and draws on powers of infer­
encing to fill out the sense of the information conveyed by the teller
where these seems calculatedly incomplete or indirect. Following
Grice, but moving in a more explicitly cognitivist direction, Sperber &
Wilson (1986), and some attempts have been made to develop a spe­
cifically relevance-theoretical account of narrative implicature (Walsh
2007).
If a coherent narrative is one in which there are sufficient overt or
covert clues for the reader to see links, understand the text as a totality
(i.e. the double logic of narration—a telling here and now of a unified
sequence of events that happened then and there—is felt to be sus­
tained), see a point and a → tellability, then an incoherent narrative is
one in which such clues seem to be insufficient. And since coherence
(like conversation cooperativeness) is such a strong norm, its absence
in turn may give rise to strong reactions of frustration, annoyance, re­
jection of the text as “unnatural,” absurd, or valueless (irrelevant in the
Sperber & Wilson sense, of yielding little or no benefits for the inter­
pretive relevance-calculating efforts invested).
 Coherence 54

3.6 Narrativity, Tellability, and Coherence

Is narrative coherence essentially a matter of narrativity, substantially

overlapping with the latter, such that a text that is judged high in nar­
rativity will by the same token be high in coherence? Everything de­
pends on how these terms are understood, and as one authoritative in­
troduction states, discussions of narrativity can soon become “a tangled
web” of differently emphasized elements (Abbott [2002] 2008: 25). For
some, the focus is primarily on plot or event-progression, the sense of a
narrative arc; others emphasize the creation of a storyworld; different
again is Fludernik’s emphasis on narrativity as “mediated experiential­
ity,” sourced in oral storytelling (for a recent overview of discussions
of narrativity, see Prince 1999; for a thought-provoking rebuttal of nar­
ratology’s over-determining of progression, point, closure, etc., see
Tammi 2005). Elsewhere, Fludernik treats narrativity as the quality of
narrativehood that a reader can impose on a text by reading it as a nar­
rative, calling that process narrativization (Fludernik 1996: 34). Abbott
(this publication) discusses narrativity under four headings, and by im­
plication four at least partly distinct aspects: as inherent or extensional;
as scalar or intensional (perhaps the most widely-adopted conception);
as varying according to narrative type or genre; and as a mode among
modes. Mention should also be made of Pier & García Landa eds.
(2008). The several understandings of narrativity on offer nevertheless
suggest that it is a property of texts that is of a different order from co­
herence; texts can be high or low in coherence independently of their
being high or low in narrativity.
Generic and cultural narrative norms concerning tellability, nar­
rativity, event and eventfulness, and the nature of the narrator or im­
plied author are crucial in the shaping of reception (on which the work
of Iser 1976 was seminal). Norms of narrativity and narrative compre­
hension are discussed (in addition to the authors cited above) by Kindt
& Müller 2003; Culler 1975; Alber 2005; Emmott 1997. All the fore­
going concepts are in part ways of addressing the issue of coherence in
narrative, and all point to the difficulty of teasing apart what can be
called the intensional and the extensional aspects of narrative coher­
ence, or of making a distinction between what it consists in and how it
is produced. Regarding the latter, reference can be made to patterns of
grammatical and lexical cohesion at the level of récit or discours, and
to the normal expectation of multiple connections in the projected
storyworld and in the sequence of incidents (chiefly at the level of his­
toire); similarly, continuity in the schemata (frames or scripts) acti-
55 Coherence

vated on the discours level and in the references to the context, is usu­
al. But it remains controversial to claim that they are essential.

3.7 Challenges to Coherence

One form of challenge to coherence is, significantly, almost a design

feature of modern literary narratives: free indirect discourse. Being
“unspeakable” sentences, radically divided or indeterminate between
two deictic centers of utterance or footing, free indirect discourse text
is inherently problematic on first encounter. No less challenging is
metaphor. Where metaphor is intended but fails to be detected by the
reader or listener, the perception of coherence will be put to the test; on
the other hand, a reader’s ability to interpret superficially unconnected
entities or processes as metaphorical can enable the recognition of co­
herence. Besides metaphor, milder threats to coherence include hyper­
bole, litotes, irony, sarcasm, and → metalepsis. Lying and misrepre-
sentation often constitute an attempted counter-coherence, perhaps a
coherence that seems more compelling or rewarding than the truth (cf.
Iago’s wicked storytelling to Othello), so perhaps need not be covered
here as a threatening of coherence, but a manipulation of it. Different
again, and much more troubling for the reader/addressee, is the narra­
tion which is or is suspected of being unreliable. With unreliable narra­
tion, the reader is able to reconstruct two or more coherent versions of
events and their motivation. But by their very nature, each coherent
version implies the false coherence of the others. Another kind of chal­
lenge to perceptible coherence can come in a narrative centered upon
the unfamiliar equipment and discourse of some specialist field or
activity (neurosurgery, fly fishing, electronic engineering), to the point
that the average addressee has only limited understanding of “what is
going on.”
One of the most basic of all challenges concerns continuity of topic:
the sense that whatever a narrative is judged to be “about,” it is consist­
ently about that person or situation, without digressions or irrelevances.
But typically, literary narratives are sufficiently multidimensional that,
at any transition point, a multiplicity of relevant discoursal continu­
ations can reasonably be made and so must be chosen from. Flouting of
the simplest topic-continuity and -progression does not invariably lead
to incoherence (cf. Tristram Shandy as an early novelistic testing of
topic and narrativity expectations). Lack of inferrable topic-attentive­
ness, in subsequent narration, may be grounds for suspecting incoher­
ence, but not conclusive grounds if, subsequently, some more global or
 Coherence 56

macro-textual perspective can “repair” the textual situation by seeing a

macro-thematic relevance among the seemingly unrelated material.
What is the opposite of coherence, the greatest challenge to narra-
tive coherence? It is common to cite “texts” comprising randomly con­
catenated sentences, with perhaps equally random sequencing of un­
connected words within those sentences, as exemplifying incoherence.
By no reasonable means can the reader detect any covert sense in or
behind the text; no hidden chain of unfolding events can be found. But
another kind of coherence-challenge is presented by the narrative in
which continuities of character, time, place, and event-chain are ac­
companied by “senseless” tragedy or comedy: the hero abruptly kills
his lover without a shred of motivation or justification; or the wealthy
main character is suddenly and inexplicably showered with untold
wealth. These are such challenges to narrative expectation and norms
of causation as to destabilize coherence-patterns concerning content,
rather than form. What are at issue here are not forms of irrationality or
immorality (there need be no lack of coherence—and plenty of interest
and tellability—in narratives driven by these), but seemingly purely
random unplanned, unplotted sequencing of events leading to an “unfit­
ting” outcome. In such narratives containing absurd or “senseless” tra­
gic or comic reversal, there is no prima facie incoherence, so they are
often shunned on grounds of tellability and verisimilitude (even though
we know that “inexplicable” tragedy or comedy are not uncommon in
the real world).
One means of further exploring coherence and its apparent absence
is by trying to pinpoint the source of “incoherence” (where alleged) in
notorious cases, such as Kafka’s Metamorphosis or the films of David
Lynch (e.g. Mulholland Drive), or e. e. cummings’s poem “anyone
lived in a pretty how town” (Cummings 1991). This nine-stanza poem,
despite its interpretive challenges to the reader, is widely felt to tell a
coherent narrative about a generic young couple, anyone and no-one,
and indeed the poem was adapted into a short film by George Lucas.
But there are textual characteristics which at first seem to militate
against narrative coherence, such as the listing and chanting, and a gen­
eral uncertainty as to “what happens.” Despite various textual markers
and cues which seem not to guarantee particularity of agentive exist­
ents (characters) or a clear sequence from opening lack to attempted fi­
nal completion, skilled readers find enough here to impose just such a
narrativity frame on the text, and thus to naturalize it as adequate and
tellable narrative. The naturalizing interpretive procedure is essentially
probabilistic: given the kinds of genre-reflective clues in the poem,
story or film under scrutiny, including particularity and continuity of
57 Coherence

settings, characters, events, and perceptibility of change of state, the

whole is judged to make more sense when treated as a narrative than if
not. Whatever the mode in which a narrative appears, more local co-
herence or processing challenges can be presented where the teller has
opted for extensive narrative ellipsis, cutting, or gaps. Striking the most
satisfactory balance between what is explicitly told or shown and what
is left unsaid or unshown but to be inferred is as much an art as a sci­
ence, and again will vary with audience, culture, and narrative literacy.
A different kind of challenge is presented by the following brief
narrative: The lone ranger rode off into the sunset and jumped on his
horse. This sentence is used in the pragmatics literature to exemplify
the conventional sequential implicature of “and” (over and above its
atemporal conjoining function, as in “eggs and bacon” or “buy and
sell”). But if we judge the report to be narratively incoherent, on the
grounds that the ranger must have jumped on his horse before riding
off into the sunset, then this highlights the special coherence demands
always created by the “double-logic” of narration (built on a sequence
of events which are potentially reportable via a different sequence of
textual or filmic segments). Because the narrative discourse, whatever
its anachronies and shifts of voice or viewpoint, is ultimately matched
to a projected (imagined) prior event-sequence story, it cannot radically
misrepresent that story without risking incoherence.

3.8 Perceived Coherence

Coherence must be not merely local (i.e. appropriate anaphoric or co­

hesive links between sentences), but global (appropriate relevance of
most if not all sentences to an overarching theme or purpose; cf. Rein­
hart 1980; Kintsch & van Dijk 1978; Goldman et al. eds. 1999). How­
ever, one must be guarded about assuming that continuity alone (how­
ever defined) is what differentiates a text from “a random sequence of
sentences (a non-text)” (Charolles & Ehrlich 1991: 254). A large body
of poetry with greater or lesser degrees of narrativity (and not just post­
modern poetry) challenges our canons of continuity without being dis­
missable as non-text or incoherent. And as a rule of thumb, we can pos­
tulate that where some form of more global coherence is detectable,
this will override or displace local discontinuities or incoherences. Fur­
thermore, human language-users can be remarkably resourceful in mak­
ing sense (global coherence) even where none is immediately apparent,
e.g. by means of re-contextualizing or interpreting selected items or
events metaphorically (a literary theoretical term for such processes is
 Coherence 58

“naturalization”; cf. Culler 1975: 134–60; equally relevant is Fluder-

nik’s 1996 conception of “narrativization”).
Like beauty, coherence seems finally to be perceptual, in the eye or
mind of the beholder. We preferentially look for “just one thing” to be
narrated, in all necessary detail, and “completely.” This may involve a
shifting of attention among numerous different things (characters,
places, times, etc.), provided they can eventually be seen to interrelate.
By contrast, a seemingly unmotivated and unpredictable shifting of at­
tention through a multiplicity of things is usually rejected as producing
narrative incoherence. If at the ideational core of most narratives some
kind of lack or problem is introduced, and an attempted resolution or
completion of that lack or problem is then reported, then forms of nar­
rative that are judged to move far from this core will tend to be seen as
less than fully coherent. Narrative’s emphasis on a unifiable lack and
its attempted resolution means that there is a natural place here for the
Aristotelian unities of time, place, and action, as further standard meas­
ures of coherence (to be departed from where this is justified).

4 Topics for Further Investigation

What may have escaped notice is the borrowing of the more particular
notion of “narrative coherence,” which is now frequently invoked in
(inter alia) theories and practices of psychiatry (Fiese ed. 2001), human
psychology (McAdams 2006), psychotherapy (e.g. Linde 1993; Roberts
& Holmes eds. 1999), and work with high-functioning autistic or learn­
ing-disabled children and adults (e.g. Diehl et al. 2006).
Some of the most interesting use of the notion of coherence in nar­
rative studies has focused on the macrothematic and the largest long-
term consequences of a series of events. For example, life-story anal-
yses often focus on the coherence within those stories (Linde 1993;
Ochs & Capps 2001) in the course of understanding experiences which
are problematic or painful: coherence is integral to the therapeutic or
identity-affirming work undertaken (e.g. illness narratives: Hawkins
1993). And analysts of narratives who are most interested in the ideo-
logical, political or ecological positions depicted in life stories and
many other public narratives evaluate their consistency and fairness by
reference to coherence.
59 Coherence

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

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Culpeper, Jonathan (2001). Language and Characterisation: People in Plays and oth­
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Liveright.
de Beaugrande, Robert & Wolfgang U. Dressler (1981). Introduction to Text Linguist­
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ford: Oxford UP.
– et al. (2006). “Capturing the attention of readers? Stylistic and psychological per­
spectives on the use and effect of text fragmentation in narratives.” Journal of Lit­
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Fiese, Barbara, ed. (2001). The Stories That Families Tell: Narrative Coherence, Nar­
rative Interaction and Relationship Beliefs. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra & Dionysis Goutsos ([1997] 2004). Discourse Analysis:
An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
Gernsbacher, Morton Ann & Talmy Givón (1995). Coherence in Spontaneous Text.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Gerrig, Richard J. (1993). Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activ­
ities of Reading. New Haven: Yale UP.
 Coherence 60

Giora, Rachel (1985). “Notes Towards a Theory of Text Coherence.” Poetics Today 6,
699–715.
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Halliday, Michael A. K. & Ruqaiya Hasan (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Long­
man.
Hawkins, Anne (1993). Reconstructing Illness: Studies in Pathography. West Lafay­
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Herman, David (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln:
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– (2009). Basic Elements of Narrative. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hoey, Michael (2005). Lexical Priming: A New Theory of Words and Language. Lon­
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63.
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UP.
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of Minnesota P.
Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (2003). ”Narrative theory and/or/as Theory of Inter­
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regarding the Status of a Theory. Berlin: de Gruyter, 205–19.
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(eds). Occasional Papers 1976-1977. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 202–52.
Lämmert, Eberhard (1955). Bauformen des Erzählens. Stuttgart: Metzler.
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Linde, Charlotte (1993). Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence. New York: Oxford
UP.
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Margolin Uri (1983). “Characterization in Narrative: Some Theoretical Prolegomena.”
Neophilologus 67, 1–14.
– (1990). “Individuals in Narrative Worlds: An Ontological Perspective.” Poetics
Today 11, 843–71.
McAdams, Dan P. (2006). “The Problem of Narrative Coherence.” Journal of Con­
structivist Psychology 19, 109–25.
Ochs, Eleanor & Lisa Capps (2001). Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday
Storytelling. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
61 Coherence

Pier, John & José Ángel García Landa (eds) (2008). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de
Gruyter.
Poe, Edgar Allan ([1846] 1982). “The Philosophy of Composition.” The Complete
Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 889–907.
Pratt, Mary Louise (1977). Towards a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse.
Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Prince, Gerald (1973). A Grammar of Stories: An Introduction. The Hague: Mouton.
– (1999). “Revisiting Narrativity.” A. Grunzweig & A. Solbach (eds). Grenzüber­
schreitungen: Narratologie im Kontext / Transcending Boundaries: Narratology in
Context. Tübingen: Narr, 43–51.
Propp, Vladimir ([1928] 1968). Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: U of Texas P.
Reinhart, Tanya (1980). “Conditions for Text Coherence.” Poetics Today 1.1, 161–80.
Roberts, Glenn & Jeremy Holmes, eds. (1999). Healing Stories: Narrative in Psychi­
atry and Psychotherapy. New York: Oxford UP.
Rosch, Eleanor (1978). “Principles of Categorization.” E. R. & B. B. Lloyd (eds). Cog­
nition and Categorization. Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 27–48.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Schmid, Wolf (2003). “Narrativity and Eventfulness.” T. Kindt & H.-H. Müller (eds).
What Is Narratology? Questions and Answers Regarding the Status of a Theory.
Berlin: de Gruyter, 17–33.
Schneider, Ralf (2001). “Toward a Cognitive Theory of Literary Character: The Dy­
namics of Mental-Model Construction.” Style 35, 607–40.
Sinclair, John M. & Malcolm Coulthard (1975). Towards an Analysis of Discourse:
The English Used by Teachers and Pupils. London: Oxford UP.
Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson ([1986] 1995). Relevance: Communication and Cogni­
tion. Oxford: Blackwell.
Stanzel, Franz K. ([1955] 1971). Narrative Situations in the Novel: Tom Jones, Moby-
Dick, The Ambassadors, Ulysses. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
– ([1979] 1984). A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Stein, Nancy & Christine Glenn (1979). “An analysis of story comprehension in ele­
mentary school children.” R. D. Freedle (ed). Advances in Discourse Processes:
Vol. 2. New Directions in Discourse Processing. Norwood: Ablex, 53–119.
Stubbs, Michael (1983). Discourse Analysis: the Sociolinguistic Analysis of Natural
Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Tammi, Pekka (2005). “Against Narrative (‘A Boring Story’).” Partial Answers 4, 19–
40.
Thorndyke, Perry W. (1977). “Cognitive structures in comprehension and memory of
narrative discourse.” Cognitive Psychology 9, 77–110.
Todorov, Tzvetan (1969). Grammaire du “Décaméron.” The Hague: Mouton.
– ([1971] 1977). The Poetics of Prose. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
– ([1978] 1990). Genres in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Toolan, Michael (2009). Narrative Progression in the Short Story: a corpus stylistic
approach. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
van Dijk, Teun A. (1972). Some Aspects of Text Grammars. The Hague: Mouton.
Walsh, Richard (2007). The Rhetoric of Fictionality. Columbus: Ohio State UP.
 Coherence 62

Watts, Richard J. (1981). The Pragmalinguistic Analysis of Narrative Texts. Tübingen:

Narr.
Werth, Paul (1999). Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. Lon­
don: Longman.
Yaron, Iris (2008). “What is a ‘Difficult Poem’? Towards a Definition.” Journal of Lit­
erary Semantics 37, 129–50.

5.2 Further Reading

Bordwell, David (1985). Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: U of Wisconsin P.
– (2006). The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. Berkeley:
U of California P.
Brown, Gillian (1995). Speakers, Listeners and Communication. Cambridge: Cam­
bridge UP.
Bublitz, Wolfram, et al. eds. (1999). Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse: How
to Create it and How to Describe it. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Charolles, Michel, et al. (1986). Research in Text Connexity and Text Coherence: A
Survey. Hamburg: Buske.
Chafe, Wallace, ed. (1980). The Pear Stories. Cognitive, Cultural, and Linguistic As­
pects of Narrative Production. Norwood: Ablex.
Herman, David (2005). “Events and Event Types.” D. Herman et al. (eds). The Rout­
ledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 151–52.
Hühn, Peter (2005). “Plotting the Lyric: Forms of Narration in Poetry.” E. Müller-
Zettelmann & M. Rubik (eds). Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric.
Amsterdam: Rodopi, 147–72.
Richardson, Brian, ed. (2008). Narrative Beginnings. Theories and Practices. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
Sternberg, Meir (1993). Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction.
Bloomington: Indiana UP.
– (2001). “How Narrativity Makes a Difference.” Narrative 9, 115–22.
Trabasso, Tom, et al. (1984). “Causal cohesion and story coherence.” H. Mandl et al.
(eds). Learning and Comprehension of Text. Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 83–111.
Viehoff, Reinhold (1988). “Preliminary Remarks to ‘Coherence’ in Understanding
Poems.” J. Petöfi & T. Olivi (eds). From Verbal Constitution to Symbolic Meaning.
Hamburg: Buske, 397–414.
Vorderer, Paul, et al. eds. (1996). Suspense: Conceptualizations, Theoretical Analyses,
and Empirical Explorations. Mahwah: Erlbaum.
 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration
Monika Fludernik

1 Definition

“Oral narrative” is a term that covers a number of different types of

storytelling: spontaneous conversational narrative (“natural narrative”);
institutionalized oral narrative in an oral culture context; oral bardic
poetry; simulations of orality in written texts by means of narrative
strategies such as pseudo-orality or skaz. For narratology, oral narrative
has been important at two different stages of the discipline. In Russian
formalism (especially in the work of Propp) and during the 1960s (es­
pecially in the work of Bremond and Greimas) fairytales, which had
their basis in orally transmitted storytelling, were used to analyze the
deep structure of narrative and to discover functions of plot elements
and typical actant structures (→ character). More recently, Herman,
Fludernik and others, inspired by discourse analysis, have concentrated
on conversational storytelling both as an interesting type of narrative in
and by itself and as a prototype of all narration. This work has addi­
tionally had a close affinity with cognitive studies (→ cognitive narra­
tology). Institutionalized oral narrative as in the Homeric epics focuses
on both the deep and the surface structure of narrative, analyzing plot-
related motifs and the repetition of epitheta and formulae on the dis­
course level. The technique of pseudo-orality, finally, is a secondary
phenomenon. It refers to the evocation of characters’ mode of utterance
(especially in terms of dialect and colloquiality) in the written repre-
sentation of speech.

2 Explication

The basic prototype of oral narrative is spontaneous conversational

narrative. This covers narratives produced in face-to-face exchanges in
a variety of contexts such as storytelling sequences at dinner parties,
brief narratives interspersed in telephone conversations or in doctor/pa­
tient and lawyer/client exchanges. Labov & Waletzky (1967) use the
term “natural narrative” for this type of oral narration. In German, the
64 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration

term Alltagserzählung (e.g. Ehlich ed. 1980) is current, emphasizing

the fact that conversational narrative occurs in the framework of every­
day interaction. Spontaneous (or unsolicited) conversational narrative
must be distinguished from solicited narratives told to interviewers. In
the corpus of the Survey of English Usage (London), mealtime conver­
sations, telephone conversations, etc. were taped in which narratives
spontaneously occurred without solicitation or elicitation by the re­
searcher. By contrast, in Labov’s (1972) study, the material comes
from solicited narratives in which interviewers asked African-Ameri-
can youths to tell stories about specific personal experiences. The same
method was adopted for more extended acts of storytelling in Terkel
(1984). Unsolicited conversational storytelling takes place in very di­
verse circumstances, but it is also present in much informal exchange
on the telephone, in social gatherings, etc. In the latter case, story se­
quences may emerge in which the conversation develops into a series
of narratives (one joke after the other, one story after the other about
one’s worst experience with doctors, etc.). Spontaneously occurring
natural narrative has received extensive analysis in the linguistic sub-
disciplines of discourse analysis and conversation analysis. (See
Hutchby & Wooffitt 1998; Jaworksi & Coupland eds. 1999; Johnstone
2002 for the former, and Atkinson & Heritage eds. 1984; Psathas 1995;
Schegloff 2007 for the latter.)
The second and third prototypes of oral narration characterize insti­
tutionalized storytelling in an oral culture context. On the one hand,
this includes oral poetry, on the other, traditional and not necessarily
poetic (i.e. verse-form) storytelling. Based partly on the work of Lord
(1960) and Parry (ed. 1971), Ong (1982), Foley (1990, 1995) and oth­
ers have studied the emergence of traditional epic poetry and noted ex­
tensive similarities in structure and style between Homer’s Iliad or
Odyssey and the oral epics of the Balkans (guslar poetry). Much of this
research focuses on the complexity of epic poetry and on how oral pro­
duction manages to create and sustain it with the help of formulaic ele­
ments. In addition, Parry’s insights into the Homeric epics and Lord’s
analyses of contemporary guslar poetry raise questions regarding trans­
formation from the oral to the written poetic tradition.
In addition to the tradition of oral poetry, where long epics in verse
are performed, there are cultures in which narratives are presented by a
storyteller to an audience that interacts with the narrator while the story
is being told, serving as a kind of chorus or speaker of refrains. Such
oral narratives can be found in various parts of the world, e.g. in
Canada (Tedlock 1983), in African countries, and in India. In contrast
to spontaneous conversational storytelling, this type of storytelling has
 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration 65

an appointed bard who is a practiced performer; nor is it framed by an

ongoing conversation between a small number of interlocutors in
which stories are longer turns in verbal exchange. Even so, oral poetry
and oral storytelling in traditional cultural contexts do have a frame:
the institutional frame which gives the storyteller his exclusive “turn”
as performer, providing for audience/bard interaction in ritualized re­
sponses.
It could be argued that anecdotes, exempla, parables and similar
short narrative forms introduced into sermons, speeches or lectures
constitute an intermediate type of oral narration. In these contexts, nar­
ratives are inserted into ongoing oral discourse (as in spontaneous con­
versational narratives), but with one dominant speaker (as in oral po­
etry) rather than a framing conversational exchange.
The fourth type of oral narrative is “pseudo-oral discourse” (fin­
gierte Mündlichkeit; cf. Goetsch 1985). Although, literally, the evoca­
tion of orality in literary narrative has nothing to do with actual conver­
sational storytelling, this phenomenon is widespread in literary texts
and therefore of crucial importance to the narratologist. Pseudo-orality
occurs in two forms in literary (and sometimes in non-literary) narra-
tives: the representation of dialect or foreign speech in written dialogue
and the evocation of an oral narrator persona, as in the skaz (Ėjxen­
baum 1918). As pointed out by Leech & Short (1981: 167–70), the
transcription of oral speech in literary dialogue aims not at a phonolog-
ically precise rendering of dialect, but at accentuating typical dialect
features. By orthographic means, authors thus seek to highlight the dif­
ferences between standard written language and dialectal forms.
In addition to narratives that evoke linguistic alterity by stressing
stereotypical features, there are narratives that give prominence to a
pseudo-oral narrative voice, a teller figure whose style suggests that the
discourse has been uttered rather than written down. Such evocation of
orality in narrative report can be based on the combination of several
techniques. In English literature, it requires the avoidance of literate
vocabulary and complex syntax. Thus, pseudo-oral narrators, such as
Holden in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, are often garrulous,
repetitive, contradictory and illogical; they keep interrupting them­
selves and tend to address a fictive listener or audience familiarly; they
seem to have an intimate rapport with the fictional world, to which they
apparently belong, and also do not shy away from expressing their feel­
ings and views emphatically, thus setting themselves off from the typi-
cal narrators of literary texts—aloof, bland, reliable, neutral.
Russian skaz (cf. Ėjxenbaum 1918; Vinogradov 1925; Schmid
2005: 156–76) often falls under this category of the pseudo-oral, but at
66 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration

times undermines the mimetic quality of the represented discourse by

having a naïve peasant narrator resort to inappropriately elevated dic­
tion, e.g. the register of the legal or administrative elite. It must be
noted that the evocation of orality in literary texts is just that: an evoca­
tion or stylization produced by highlighting the most striking features
of oral language. What counts for narrative purposes is not a faithful
copy of the “original” utterance in all its linguistic detail, but the effect
of deviation from the norm through quaintness, informality, intimacy,
lack of education, cultural difference, class ascription. The simplifica­
tions and exaggerations of the linguistic features of orality and/or re­
gister therefore serve the purpose of facilitating identification, stereo­
typing, “local color,” or effet de réel. The technique is also used to
characterize the narrator persona, just as dialect in the dialogue of 19th-
century fiction tends to underline class difference, lack of education or
idiosyncrasy (cf. Dickens, Scott or Trollope).

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Returning to the first category, spontaneous conversational narratives,

a closer look will be taken at research results in discourse analysis and
conversation analysis before going on to discuss their relevance for
present-day narratology.

3.1 Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis

Discourse analysis developed as a sub-discipline of pragmatics, i.e. lan­

guage in use (Levinson 1983). More immediately, it derives from the
work of sociologists, in particular Sacks (1992). Sacks began by an-
alyzing telephone exchanges at a call center and then went on to estab­
lish the basic rules of conversation, notably (in narrative sequences)
“turn-taking,” “adjacency pairs,” “overlap,” “repair” and “abstracts.”
His initial research (in 1972) was followed by a landmark contribution
(Sacks et al. 1974) which concentrated on turn-taking. It was found that
conversations are structured by turns taken and held by each speaker.
In narratives, speakers are allowed longer turns, provided the inter­
locutors are alerted to the speaker’s intention to delve into a story. In
ordinary conversation, turns often come in adjacency pairs, particular-
ly at the beginning of exchanges: greeting/greeting; question/answer;
request/agreement or compliance; command/compliance; identifica-
tion/recognition (telephone); etc. Interlocutors frequently interrupt each
other and overlap (B starts to speak while A is completing his/her
turn), but they also proceed in fits and starts and may start their sen­
 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration 67

tences over (repair): e.g. “I wanted… (pause) I was wondering…

(pause) could you tell me when flight LS 03 comes in?” These frame
conditions have a significant impact on how narratives are produced in
spontaneous conversational narrative.
Discourse analysis has also been heavily influenced by Labov
(1972) and his school of discourse study, which remains fundamental
to the study of conversational narrative. Labov collected narratives eli­
cited in interviews with young African-American males, and from this
material he developed a model of the structure of natural narrative.
Labov & Waletzky (1967) propose a model of episodic narrative con­
sisting of a basic structure: abstract; orientation; narrative clauses (in­
sert clauses of delayed orientation and evaluation); result; coda. Ab­
stract and coda provide a link with the conversational frame, while the
orientation section introduces characters and setting. The authors also
introduced the terms “point” and “reportability” or “tellability”: to be
effective, narratives must be “newsworthy” (reportable) and have a
“point” (demonstrate something). These features play a crucial role in
Fludernik’s definition of experientiality, which consists in the dialectic
of → tellability and point (1996: 26–30).
Discourse analysis since Sacks and Labov has developed in great
strides. Many fruitful insights into natural narrative and oral exchange
have been gained by Schegloff, Gail Jefferson, Schiffrin, Chafe,
Tannen, Quasthoff, etc. Besides focusing on the structure and syntactic
and lexical peculiarities of natural narrative, this research has moved
into elucidating the psychological and cultural functions of conversa­
tional storytelling (Bamberg ed. 1997; Ochs & Capps 2001), the con­
struction of identity (Lucius-Hoene & Deppermann 2004), and ques­
tions of gender (Tannen 1990) as well as the aesthetic effects of using
quoted speech or thought (Schiffrin 1981).
Conversational exchanges, including narratives, come not in sen­
tences but in discourse units (Chafe calls them “idea” or “intonation
units”) which are set apart by pauses and the completion of frames
(Ono & Thompson 1995). To keep an audience’s interest, natural nar­
rative is often repetitious and interlaced with verbatim dialogue by the
participants in the events and even quotations from their thoughts, thus
fictionalizing and dramatizing stories in ways that are reminiscent of
novels or short stories (Tannen 1984, 1989; Fludernik 1993: 398–433).
Conversational narratives also employ narrative and non-narrative “dis­
course markers” (Schiffrin 1987), namely particles (mostly adverbs)
placed in conjunct or adjunct position of a clause but whose “meaning”
remains vague. They serve primarily macro-structural discourse func­
tions such as initiation of a new topic, return from a side remark to the
68 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration

main topic, capturing the interlocutors’ attention, etc. Specifically nar­

rative discourse markers shift between the on-plot and the off-plot
levels of conversational narratives, and they also mark the key points of
narrative episodes (Fludernik 1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1996).
More recently, conversation analysis has been established as a still
more refined research discipline for examining conversational ex­
change. According to Hutchby & Wooffitt (1998), discourse analysis
describes the systematic, rule-governed features of natural narrative,
whereas conversation analysis is concerned with the performative and
interactive aspects of conversational exchange. In particular, conversa­
tion analysis studies the online production of utterances and the unfa­
miliar shape of oral syntax (Atkinson & Heritage eds. 1984; Longacre
1983; Hutchby & Wooffitt 1998; Schegloff 2007). However, few con­
versation analysts deal with narrative, Quasthoff & Becker (eds. 2005)
being an exception.
Another sub-discipline, having more literary credentials, is critical
discourse analysis (Hodge & Kress 1979; Carter 1997; Blommaert
2005), which studies how discourses generate, transmit and perpetuate
ideologies and interpellate readers. Two handbooks of discourse anal-
ysis also discuss some aspects of critical discourse analysis (van Dijk
ed. 1997; Schiffrin et al. eds. 2001).

3.2 Oral Poetry and Narratology

Analyses of oral poetry have concentrated on two questions: formula­

icity and motifs. The formulaic repertoire of the epic was found to em­
ploy recurring epitheta for common objects and heroes such as “the
crafty Ulysses.” Whole verse lines are repeated nearly verbatim in or­
der to facilitate oral composition and delivery. The oral epic is also
characterized by a recurrence of typical motifs such as greeting
between host and guest, raising of the cup, embarkation, burial of the
fallen hero. More narratologically relevant are discussions of narrative
episodes based on Bremond (1973), revealing the affinity between the
structure of the epic and that of the fairy tale (cf. Wittig 1978). How­
ever, due to narratology’s concentration on the novel and on prose fic­
tion, there has been little narratological analysis of epic verse narrative.

3.3 Relevance of Conversational Narrative for Narratology

While classical narratology, in the foundational work of Propp (1928)

and Bremond (1973), analyzed short forms of narrative (the fairytale),
the emphasis fell on event sequences rather than on the oral delivery of
such tales (in the absence of tape recordings, written transcriptions
 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration 69

were used). Narratological models such as those of Genette and Stanzel

shifted their interest to the discourse level of narratives but were
primarily concerned with the novel, largely disregarding narratives pri­
or to the 18th century and all forms of oral narration. Between the com­
plexity and sophistication of the novel and seemingly unstructured,
syntactically misformed conversational narratives, a wide gap was per­
ceived, felt to be unbridgeable.
However, in the 1970s discourse analysts increasingly undertook re­
search into the structure of conversational narratives, analyzing them in
their own right. In addition to studies by Labov, Tannen, Johnstone and
Chafe for English, major work was carried out for German (Ehlich ed.
1980; Quasthoff 1980; Quasthoff & Becker eds. 2005; Brinker & Sager
2006) and French (Gülich 1970; Mondada ed. 1995; Kerbrat-Ore-
cchioni 1996, 2001). In the field of narratology, two researchers have
drawn inspiration from conversational narrative as a major source of
their own work.
Herman (1997, 1999) pleads for the relevance of natural narratives
for postclassical narratology. Taking a cue from Young (1999), who
examines the performative nature of spontaneous conversational narra-
tive and the creation and maintenance of self in patient/doctor ex­
changes, Herman proposes a model of conversational storytelling
treated as an interactive process in which the borders between ongoing
conversation and story are marked. He underlines the “jointly referen­
tial and evaluating function” (1999: 231) of modal expressions and rep-
etitions in conversational narratives and emphasizes their “interactional
achievement.” Based on a cognitive model in which producers of sto-
ries and their listeners rely on cognitive action schemata and inferences
drawn from the events related or from information provided by the nar­
rator, Herman presents narratives (in his example: elicited ghost sto-
ries) as relying on “a process of negotiation between storytellers and
their interlocutors” (239). His ultimate aim is to examine narrative
competence in conversational narrative.
Fludernik moved into the study of conversational narrative through
the problem of the historical present tense. She developed a model of
episodic narrative structure (a modification of Labov) in which the his­
torical present tense can occur at key points in a narrative episode
(1991, 1992a), serving a highlighting function (in modification of
Wolfson 1982). Fludernik (1996) went on to define conversational
storytelling as a prototype of narrative tout court. She maintains that
conversational narrative is basically about experientiality and that this
is also true of the fictional narrative of novels and short stories (53–
91), therefore providing a bridge between oral and written forms of
70 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration

narrative on the basis of → narrativity and the purpose of storytelling

(point and tellability). She further demonstrates that substrata of the
oral pattern of narrative episodes can be traced in English medieval and
early modern texts (92–128). In the history of English literature, the
formal structure of the novel, which looks so very different from that of
conversational narratives, developed slowly out of its oral roots in epi-
sodic narrative.
Over the past forty years, massive material has become available to
discourse analysts. Much of it was gathered in medical or therapeutic
contexts (cf. Bamberg ed. 1997), but oral history has also produced ex­
tensive records (Perks & Thomson eds. 1990). One sophisticated model
of conversational storytelling is provided by Lucius-Hoene & Depper­
mann (2004), describing conversational narrative as a process of ego
construction, presentation of self, and negotiation of identities. In fo­
cusing on these performative issues, the authors come strikingly close
to the kind of analysis of literary narratives undertaken by literary crit­
ics (→ identity and narration).

4 Topics for Further Research

Now that so much conversational narrative is available in transcript,

there is ample opportunity for narratological analysis of this material.
The handling of dialogue and thought processes in conversational nar­
ratives, the management of time schemata, deictic shifts, the question
of whether the concept of → focalization should be used in the analysis
of conversational narratives—these topics and more could well come
into the scope of extensive research. Particularly with the narrative turn
at the end of the 20th century, such an emphasis on naturally occurring
stories could provide an increasing awareness of the affinity between
natural narrative and more literary and elaborated forms of storytelling.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Atkinson, John Maxwell & John Heritage, eds. (1984). Structures of Social Action:
Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Bamberg, Michael, ed. (1997). Oral Versions of Personal Experience. Three Decades
of Narrative Analysis. Special issue of Journal of Narrative and Life History 7.
Blommaert, Jan (2005). Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Brown, Gillian & George Yule (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Bremond, Claude (1973). Logique du récit. Paris: Seuil.
 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration 71

Brinker, Klaus & Sven F. Sager ([1989] 2006). Linguistische Gesprächsanalyse. Ber­
lin: Schmidt.
Carter, Ronald (1997). Investigating English Discourse. London: Routledge.
Chafe, Wallace (1994). Discourse, Consciousness, and Time. The Flow and Displace­
ment of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
– ed. ([1980] 2006). Pear Stories. Cognitive, Cultural, and Linguistic Aspects of
Narrative Production. Norwood: Ablex.
Ehlich, Konrad, ed. (1980). Erzählen im Alltag. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Ėjxenbaum, Boris (Eikhenbaum) ([1918] 1975). “The Illusion of ‘Skaz’.” Russian Lit-
erature 12, 233–36.
Fludernik, Monika (1991). “The Historical Present Tense Yet Again: Tense Switching
and Narrative Dynamics in Oral and Quasi-Oral Storytelling.” Text 11, 365–98.
– (1992a). “The Historical Present Tense in English Literature: An Oral Pattern and
its Literary Adaptation.” Language and Literature 17, 77–107.
– (1992b). “Narrative Schemata and Temporal Anchoring.” The Journal of Literary
Semantics 21, 118–53.
– (1993). The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction. The Linguistic
Representation of Speech and Consciousness. London: Routledge.
– (1996). Towards a ‛Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
Foley, Miles (1990). Traditional Oral Epic. The Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-
Croatian Return Song. Berkeley: U of California P.
– (1995). The Singer of Tales in Performance. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Goetsch, Paul (1985). “Fingierte Mündlichkeit in der Erzählkunst entwickelter
Schriftkultur.” Poetica 17, 202–18.
Gülich, Elisabeth (1970). Makrosyntax der Gliederungssignale im gesprochenen Fran­
zösisch. München: Fink.
Herman, David (1997). “Scripts, Sequences, and Stories. Elements of a Postclassical
Narratology.” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of Ameri-
ca 112, 1046–59.
– (1999). “Toward a Socionarratology: New Ways of Analyzing Natural-Language
Narratives.” D. Herman (ed). Narratologies. New Perspectives on Narrative Anal-
ysis. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 218–46.
Hodge, Bob & Gunther Kress ([1979] 1993). Language as Ideology. London: Rout­
ledge.
Hutchby, Ian & Robin Wooffitt (1998). Conversation Analysis. Principles, Practices,
Applications. Cambridge: Polity.
Jaworski, Adam & Nikolas Coupland, eds. (1999). The Discourse Reader. London:
Routledge.
Johnstone, Barbara ([2002] 2008). Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine (1996). La conversation. Paris: Seuil.
– (2001). Les actes de langage dans le discours. Théorie et fonctionnement. Paris:
Nathan.
Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Ver­
nacular. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P.
72 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration

– & Joshua Waletzky (1967). “Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experi­
ence.” J. Helm (ed). Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts. Seattle: U of Washing­
ton P, 12–44.
Leech, Geoffrey N. & Michael H. Short (1981). Style in Fiction. A Linguistic Introduc­
tion to English Fictional Prose. London: Longman.
Levinson, Stephen C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Longacre, Robert E. ([1983] 1996). The Grammar of Discourse. New York: Plenum.
Lord, Albert (1960). The Singer of Tales. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Lucius-Hoene, Gabriele & Arnulf Deppermann (2004). Rekonstruktion narrativer
Identität: Ein Arbeitsbuch zur Analyse narrativer Interviews. Wiesbaden: VS für
Sozalwissenschaften.
Mondada, Lorenza, ed. (1995). Formes linguistiques et dynamiques interactionelles
Lausanne: Institut de Linguistique des Sciences du Langage.
Ochs, Elinor & Lisa Capps (2001). Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday
Storytelling. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Ong, Walter (1982). Orality and Literacy. London: Methuen.
Ono, Tsuyoshi & Sandra A. Thompson (1995). “What Can Conversation Tell Us About
Syntax?” P. W. Davis (ed). Alternative Linguistics: Descriptive and Theoretical
Modes. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 213–71.
Parry, Adam, ed. (1971). The Making of Homeric Verse. The Collected Papers of Mil­
man Parry. Oxford: Clarendon.
Perks, Robert & Alistair Thomson, eds. ([1990] 2006). The Oral History Reader. Lon­
don: Routledge.
Propp, Vladimir ([1928] 1968). Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: U of Texas P.
Psathas, George (1995). Conversation Analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Quasthoff, Uta (1980). Erzählen in Gesprächen. Tübingen: Narr.
– & Tabea Becker, eds. (2005). Narrative Interaction. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Sacks, Harvey (1972). “An Initial Investigation of the Usability of Conversational Data
for Doing Sociology.” D. Sudnow (ed). Studies in Social Interaction. New York:
Free P, 31–74.
– (1992). Lectures in Conversation. Ed. G. Jefferson. 2 vols. Oxford: Blackwell.
– et al. (1974). “A Simple Systematics for the Organization of Turn-taking for Con­
versation.” Language 50, 696–735.
Schegloff, Emanuel A. (2007). Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in
Conversation Analysis. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Schiffrin, Deborah (1981). “Tense Variation in Narrative.” Language 57, 45–62.
– (1987). Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
– et al. eds. (2001). Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Schmid, Wolf (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Tannen, Deborah (1984). Conversational Style. Analyzing Talk Among Friends. Nor­
wood: Ablex.
– (1989). Talking Voices. Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Dis­
course. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
– (1990). You Just Don’t Understand. Women and Men in Conversation. New York:
Morrow.
 Conversational Narration/Oral Narration 73

Tedlock, Dennis (1983). The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation. Phila-
delphia: U of Pennsylvania P.
Terkel, Studs ([1984] 1990). ‘The Good War.’ An Oral History of World War Two.
New York: Ballantine.
van Dijk, Teun A., ed. (1997). Discourse Studies. 2 vols. London: Sage.
Vinogradov, Viktor ([1925] 1980). “The Problem of Skaz in Stylistics.” E. Proffer &
C. R. Proffer (eds). The Ardis Anthology of Russian Futurism. Ann Arbor: Ardis.
Wittig, Susan (1978). Stylistic and Narrative Structures in the Middle English Ro­
mances. Austin: U of Texas P.
Wolfson, Nessa (1982). CHP. Conversational Historical Present in American English
Narrative. Dordrecht: Foris.
Young, Katherine (1999). “Narratives of Indeterminacy: Breaking the Medical Body
into its Discourses; Breaking the Discursive Body out of Postmodernism.” D. Her­
man (ed). Narratologies. New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis. Columbus: Ohio
State UP, 197–217.

5.2 Further Reading

Norrick, Neal R. (2000). Conversational Narrative. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Polanyi, Livia (1985). Telling the American Story: A Structural and Cultural Analysis
of Conversational Storytelling. Norwood: Ablex.
Renkema, Jan (2004). Introduction to Discourse Studies. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Ten Have, Paul (1999). Doing Conversation Analysis. A Practical Guide. Thousand
Oaks: Sage.
Zumthor, Paul ([1983] 1990). Oral Poetry. An Introduction. Minneapolis: U of Min­
nesota P.
 Dialogism
David Shepherd

1 Definition

The term “dialogism” is most commonly used to denote the quality of

an instance of discourse that explicitly acknowledges that it is defined
by its relationship to other instances, both past, to which it responds,
and future, whose response it anticipates. The positive connotations of
dialogism are often reinforced by a contrast with “monologism,” de-
noting the refusal of discourse to acknowledge its relational constitu­
tion and its misrecognition of itself as independent and unquestionably
authoritative.

2 Explication

Dialogism is overwhelmingly associated in accounts of literary theory

in general, and of narratology in particular (e.g. Prince [1987] 2003:
19–20; Phelan 2005; Williams 2005), with the work of the Russian
thinker Baxtin and the Baxtin Circle. Although Baxtin first used the
words dialogizm and dialogičnost’ (literally “dialogicality” or “dialog-
ical quality”) in his 1929 study of Dostoevskij, the locus classicus of
his understanding of dialogism is found in his 1934/35 essay “Slovo v
romane,” translated as “Discourse in the Novel”: “Directed toward its
object, a word enters a dialogically agitated and tense environment of
alien words, evaluations and accents, is woven into their complex inter­
relationships, merges with some, recoils from others, intersects with
yet a third group: and all this may in an essential manner shape the
word, may leave a trace in all its semantic layers, may complicate its
expression and influence its entire stylistic profile. / The living utter­
ance, having taken meaning and shape at a particular historical moment
in a socially specific environment, cannot fail to brush up against thou­
sands of living dialogic threads, woven by socio-ideological conscious­
ness around the given object of the utterance; it cannot fail to become
an active participant in social dialogue. Indeed, the utterance arises out
of this dialogue as a continuation of it and as a rejoinder to it—it does
75 Dialogism

not approach the object from the sidelines” (Baxtin [1934/35] 1981:
276–77; translation modified).
This extended quotation brings together many of the principal fea­
tures—utterance, evaluation, accent, social dialogue—associated with
the Baxtinian account of dialogism; other terms from the essay that
have gained widespread currency as denotations of discourse encapsu­
lating social dialogue include “hybridized” and “double-voiced.” As
the title of the essay suggests, for Baxtin the most effective means of
representing the inherently dialogic quality of discourse is the novel; in
turn, it is the polyphonic novel, exemplified most completely by the
works of Dostoevskij, that is the acme of the novelist’s “orchestration”
of raznorečie (usually translated as ® heteroglossia, the diversity of
socially specific discourses; Baxtin 1929, 1963). Baxtin’s promotion of
the novel relies to a large extent on a contrast between prose as dia­
logic and epic and poetry as monologic, an opposition that is clearly
unsustainable if all discourse is indeed inherently dialogic: monologic
discourse (whether in poetry, epic or in any other medium or genre)
can, in Baxtin’s terms, only be dialogic discourse that misrecognizes or
misreads, wilfully or otherwise, its own relationship to other discourse
in order to present itself as authoritative.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Not only is dialogism predominantly associated with Baxtin, but it has

become for many a convenient denotation of the whole tenor of his
work, shorthand for a theoretical position that, although refined and
rearticulated over the course of decades, remained in essence un­
changed, accounting for the Russian thinker’s originality. In large
measure, this over-simplification of Baxtin’s intellectual biography is a
consequence of his coming to prominence in the Soviet Union, after
decades of provincial obscurity, towards the end of his life, and indeed
in the years after his death, and therefore also of the circumstances in
which he became well known elsewhere. The collection The Dialogic
Imagination is symptomatic: its title, furnished by its translators (and
impossible to render convincingly in Russian), lends the dialogic a par­
ticular prominence and allure and exemplifies the translation’s anach-
ronistic alignment of Baxtin’s texts with the alien time and place of the
1980s theory boom, allowing them to appear to offer an unusually
sophisticated, grounded and user-friendly version of positions associat-
ed with poststructuralism. The effect, perhaps unavoidable at the time,
was to mask the resonances of many of Baxtin’s texts (already ob­
scured by his Russian editors’ excision of a large number of his refer­
 Dialogism 76

ences) with the philosophical and philological traditions with which

they engaged. Recent work has uncovered the extent to which Baxtin’s
interest in the novel was driven less by literary-critical concerns than
by a philosophical agenda that draws on the work of a range of thinkers
including Bergson, Cassirer, Misch, Vossler, Lukács and Mixajlovskij,
and that is marked by simultaneous adherence to contradictory neo-
Kantian and Hegelian principles (Brandist 2002: esp. 120–32; Tihanov
2000). Furthermore, the account of discourse that is part of this philo­
sophical project is likewise crucially dependent on the work of others.
It was largely thanks to Vološinov and Medvedev, until recently con­
sistently misrepresented as mere acolytes of Baxtin, but now recog­
nized as important figures in their own right, whose own interests were
in significant measure shaped by their participation in the research pro­
grammes of the academic institutions where they worked, that Baxtin
underwent in the late 1920s the “linguistic turn” (Hirschkop 2001) that
allowed dialogue and the dialogic to assume such importance in his
works of the 1930s. In particular, Vološinov’s account of discursive in­
teraction (Vološinov 1926, 1929), which drew on, inter alia, the work
of the linguist Jakubinskij (1923), Brentanian psychology, Bühler’s
“organon model” of communication, Gestalt theory, and Cassirer’s
Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, was a precondition for the dialogic the­
ory of the utterance that usually but misleadingly bears Baxtin’s name.
Overall, it is essential to recognize that a number of key terms and con­
cepts for which Baxtin tends to be given the sole or principal credit are
in fact products and properties of the contexts in which he worked, and
of the traditions to which he was, both directly and indirectly, affiliat-
ed. Perhaps the most notable instance, apart from dialogism itself, is
the concept that underpins it, heteroglossia, the word usually used (al­
though more accurate and appropriate would be “heterology”) to trans­
late the Russian term raznorečie that is often considered a Baxtinian
neologism, but that was in fact widely employed by contemporaneous
linguists (Zbinden 1999; Brandist 2003; Shepherd 2005).

3.1 Relevance for Narratology

If the account of dialogic discourse associated with Baxtin has proved

attractive, this may be because it enables detailed description of aspects
of fictional narrative such as point of view (® perspective) and voice
(® speech representation) to be combined with reference to factors so­
cial and ideological, thereby offering apparent cover against accusa­
tions of arid narratological neglect of the referent. However, it has also
been subject to misinterpretation as a relativistic rather than relational
77 Dialogism

model, a sustained plea that we should always see all sides of an argu­
ment, or that “faced with a choice of competing interpretations we
must always choose both” (Booker & Juraga 1995: 16). In large meas­
ure, the ease with which dialogism has been appropriated as a tool for
(not only) literary analysis, and the blunting of this tool by casual use,
are consequences of a failure to recognize and engage with the con-
cept’s place in intellectual history, with the philosophical and philolog-
ical contexts in which dialogism denotes not an identifiable quality of a
narrative text, but a set of problems in the study of human language,
communication and cognition (Linell 1998).
The implication of all this would appear to be not so much that dia­
logism is not relevant for narratology, but that there is a mismatch
between the complexities of understanding dialogism in historical per­
spective on the one hand, and on the other narratology’s apparent re­
quirement for an instrument enabling more or less objective description
and analysis of certain properties of narrative texts and their effects.
But to assert this would be to disregard the prospect that theory de­
scribable as “dialogic” does hold out of a sensitive and sophisticated
approach, firmly anchored in an account of the concrete institutions in
which fiction is produced and consumed, to questions of authorial, nar­
ratorial and readerly agency and interdependence—in Prince’s terms,
the “elaboration of an explicit, complete, and empirically grounded
model of narrative accounting for narrative competence (the ability to
produce narratives and to process texts as narratives) [that] ultimately
constitutes the most significant narratological endeavor” (2003: 12). It
would also be to disparage unduly the achievements and, especially,
potential of narratology, not least in what Nünning (2003) describes as
the “postclassical” phase in which it seeks to move beyond structuralist
typologization (Herman 1999).

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) The precise relationship between dialogism and other terms used to
denote modes of representing point of view (focalization, free indirect
discourse, polyphony, etc.; an excellent beginning to this investigation
is offered by Lock 2001). (b) The implications of the philosophical and
philological lineage of dialogism for the project of narratology (this is
simply one expression of the broader question of the extent to which
literary/critical theory does or does not recognize its historical affilia-
tions). Is dialogism a solution to a (narratological) problem, or a con­
venient denotation of a set of complex (philosophical and linguistic)
problems in search of a solution?
 Dialogism 78

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Baxtin, Mixail ([1929] 2000). Problemy tvorčestva Dostoevskogo. S. G. Bočarov &
L. S. Melixova (eds). Sobranie sočinenij. Moskva: Russkie slovari, vol. 2, 5–175.
– (Bakhtin, Mikhail) ([1934/35] 1981). “Discourse in the Novel.” M. B. The Dialog-
ic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: U of Texas P, 259–422.
– ([1963] 1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Manchester: Manchester UP.
Booker, M. Keith & Dubravka Juraga (1995). Bakhtin, Stalin, and Modern Russian
Fiction: Carnival, Dialogism, and History. Westport: Greenwood P.
Brandist, Craig (2002). The Bakhtin Circle: Philosophy, Culture and Politics. London:
Pluto P.
– (2003). “Bakhtine, la sociologie du langage et le roman.” P. Sériot (ed). Le Dis­
cours sur la langue en URSS à l’époque stalinienne (épistémologie, philosophie,
idéologie). Lausanne: Presses Centrales de Lausanne, 59–83.
Herman, David (1999). “Introduction: Narratologies.” D. H. (ed). Narratologies: New
Perspectives on Narrative Analysis. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1–30.
Hirschkop, Ken (2001). “Bakhtin’s Linguistic Turn.” Dialogism 5–6, 21–34.
Jakubinskij, Lev P. (Iakubinskii) ([1923] 1997). “On Dialogic Speech.” PMLA: Publi-
cations of the Modern Language Association of America 112, 249–56.
Linell, Per (1998). Approaching Dialogue: Talk, Interaction and Contexts in Dialogi-
cal Perspectives. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Lock, Charles (2001). “Double Voicing, Sharing Words: Bakhtin’s Dialogism and the
History of the Theory of Free Indirect Discourse.” J. Bruhn & J. Lundquist (eds).
The Novelness of Bakhtin: Perspectives and Possibilities. Copenhagen: Museum
Tusculanum P, 71–87.
Nünning, Ansgar (2003). “Narratology or Narratologies? Taking Stock of Recent De-
velopments, Critique and Modest Proposals for Future Usages of the Term.”
T. Kindt & H.-H. Müller (eds). What Is Narratology? Questions and Answers Re­
garding the Status of a Theory. Berlin: de Gruyter, 239–75.
Phelan, James (2005). “Rhetorical Approaches to Narrative.” D. Herman et al. (eds).
Routledge Encyclopaedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 500–04.
Prince, Gerald ([1987] 2003). Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
– (2003). “Surveying Narratology.” T. Kindt & H.-H. Müller (eds). What Is Narrato­
logy? Questions and Answers Regarding the Status of a Theory. Berlin: de Gruyter,
1–16.
Shepherd, David (2005). “La Pensée de Bakhtine: dialogisme, décalage, discordance.”
K. Zbinden & I. Weber Henking (eds). La Quadrature du Cercle Bakhtine: traduc­
tions, influences et remises en contexte. Lausanne: Centre de Traduction Littéraire
de Lausanne, 5–25.
Tihanov, Galin (2000). The Master and the Slave: Lukács, Bakhtin, and the Ideas of
Their Time. Oxford: Clarendon P.
Vološinov, Valentin N. (Voloshinov) ([1926] 1983). “Discourse in Life and Discourse
in Poetry.” A. Shukman (ed). Bakhtin School Papers. Oxford: RPT Publications,
1983, 5–30.
79 Dialogism

– ([1929] 1973). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Williams, Patrick (2005). “Dialogism.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia
of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 104–05.
Zbinden, Karine (1999). “Traducing Bakhtin and Missing Heteroglossia.” Dialogism 2,
41–59.

5.2 Further Reading

Baxtin, Mixail (Bakhtin, Mikhail) (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Aus­
tin: U of Texas P.
Brandist, Craig (2004). “Voloshinov’s Dilemma: On the Philosophical Roots of the
Dialogic Theory of the Utterance.” C. Brandist et al. (eds). The Bakhtin Circle: In
the Master’s Absence. Manchester: Manchester UP, 97–124.
Cossutta, Frédéric (2003). “Dialogic Characteristics of Philosophical Discourse: The
Case of Plato’s Dialogues.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 36, 48–76.
de Man, Paul (1983). “Dialogue and Dialogism.” Poetics Today 4, 99–107.
Hirschkop, Ken (1992). “Is Dialogism for Real?” Social Text 30, 102–13.
– (1986). “The Domestication of M. M. Bakhtin.” Essays in Poetics 11, 76–87.
– (1999). Mikhail Bakhtin: An Aesthetic for Democracy. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Holquist, Michael (2002). Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World. London: Routledge.
Matejka, Ladislav (1996). “Deconstructing Bakhtin.” C.-A. Mihailescu & W. Hamar-
neh (eds). Fiction Updated: Theories of Fictionality, Narratology, and Poetics.
Toronto: U of Toronto P, 257–66.
Morson, Gary Saul & Caryl Emerson (1990). Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics.
Stanford: Stanford UP.
Pechey, Graham (2007). Mikhail Bakhtin: The Word in the World. London: Routledge.
Schmid, Wolf (1999). “Dialogizität in der narrativen Kommunikation.” I. Lunde (ed).
Dialogue and Rhetoric.Communication Strategies in Russian Text and Theory.
Bergen: U of Bergen, 9–23; and Amsterdam International Electronic Journal for
Cultural Narratology 1 (2005) [http.//cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/s05_index.htm].
Todorov, Tzvetan ([1981] 1984). Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle. Man-
chester: Manchester UP.
 Event and Eventfulness
Peter Hühn

1 Definition

The term “event” refers to a change of state, one of the constitutive fea­
tures of narrativity. We can distinguish between event I, a general type
of event that has no special requirements, and event II, a type of event
that satisfies certain additional conditions. A type I event is present for
every change of state explicitly or implicitly represented in a text. A
change of state qualifies as a type II event if it is accredited—in an in­
terpretive, context-dependent decision—with certain features such as
relevance, unexpectedness, and unusualness. The two types of event
correspond to broad and narrow definitions of narrativity respectively:
narration as the relation of changes of any kind and narration as the
representation of changes with certain qualities.

2 Explication

The concept of event has become prominent in recent work on narra­

tology; it is generally used to help define → narrativity in terms of the
sequentiality inherent to the narrated story. This sequentiality involves
changes of state in the represented world and thereby implies the pres­
ence of temporality time), which is a constitutive aspect of narration
and distinguishes it from other forms of discourse such as description
or argumentation.
The concept of event is used primarily in two contexts to define two
basic types of narration: a type of narration that can be described lin­
guistically and manifests itself in predicates that express changes
(event I), on the one hand, an interpretation- and context-dependent
type of narration that implies changes of a special kind (event II), on
the other. Both categories are characterized by the presence of a change
of state—the transition from one state (situation) to another, usually
with reference to a character (agent or patient) or a group of characters.
The difference between event I and event II lies in the degree of spe­
cificity of change to which they refer. Event I involves all kinds of
81 Event and Eventfulness

change of state, whereas event II concerns a special kind of change that

meets certain additional conditions in the sense, for example, of being
a decisive, unpredictable turn in the narrated happenings, a deviation
from the normal, expected course of things, as is implied by event in
everyday language. Whether these additional conditions are met is a
matter of interpretation; event II is therefore a hermeneutic category,
unlike event I, which can largely be described objectively.
A type I event is linguistically expressed by the difference of pre­
dicates (Prince 1987). A type II event, on the other hand, acquires the
relevance and additional features that constitute it only with reference
to intradiegetic expectations, to a literary or cultural context. It must,
that is to say, be brought into being and related to its surroundings by
an entity (character, narrator, or reader) that comprehends and inter­
prets the change of state involved. Contextual reference of this kind
can allow a type I event or a combination of type I events to be trans­
formed into a type II event. Consider the following examples. In and of
itself, the sentence “Eveline stepped onto the ship” contains a type I
event; only as a result of reference (via character, narrator, or reader) to
a social context does it acquire special relevance and thereby become a
type II event in the sense of being a deviation from what is normal and
expected (e.g. emigration as a new beginning). Next, take a historiogra-
phical narrative in which the French Revolution is treated in the con­
text of long-term socio-political developments in France. If the histori­
an here describes the Revolution as a type II event on the basis of the
profound changes set in motion at the time, we are dealing with the
transformation not of a single type I event, but of a multiplicity of type
I events.
The two types of event imply different definitions of narrativity,
each with a different scope. The type I event is treated as a defining
feature inherent to every kind of narrative (e.g. Prince 1987; Herman
2005); the type II event, on the other hand, is integral to a particular
type of narrative, providing the foundation for its raison d’être, or
→ tellability (Labov 1972). These two basic types of narrativity can be
contrasted (drawing on Lotman 1970) as plotless narration vs. narration
that possesses plot, or as process narration vs. event-based narration.
Type I events, largely objective and independent of interpretation, have
been studied primarily in linguistics (Frawley 1992), literary comput­
ing (Meister 2003), and numerous stucturalist approaches (from the
Russian formalists to the French and American narratologists of the
1960s to the 1970s). The concept of the type II event, on the other
hand, has been discussed above all in the context of Lotman’s idea of
plot concept, in research on everyday narratives (Labov 1972), in psy­
 Event and Eventfulness 82

chology (Bruner 1991), in literary theory, and also in historiography

(Suter & Hettling 2001; Rathmann 2003).

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 The Concept of Event in the Poetics of the Tragedy and

the Novella

The earliest theoretical conceptualization of type II eventfulness spe­

cifically refers to drama, Aristotle’s description, in Poetics (Halliwell
1987: chaps. X, XI, XIII), of the plot in tragedies as defined by a deci-
sive turning point. He distinguishes three types of change which singly
or—ideally—combined constitute a tragic plot: reversal (peripeteia);
recognition (anagnorisis); and suffering (pathos). While peripeteia is
to be understood as the formal designation of eventful change, anag-
norisis and pathos specify its concrete―cognitive and existen-
tial―manifestations. The tragic hero thus undergoes a (primarily nega-
tive) eventful change from prosperity to adversity, but also from ignor­
ance to knowledge.
As to narrative fiction proper, there is a close connection between
the event II concept and the genesis and development of the novella
genre, implicitly with respect to plot structure and explicitly, if rarely
and only at a late stage, with respect to poetological reflection. The rel­
evant authors include, above all, Boccaccio and Goethe. In Bocca-
ccio’s Decameron, the plot frequently involves the violation of a pro­
hibition or the crossing of a boundary imposed by moral norms (the af­
firmation of sexuality) or the social order (the flaunting of class differ­
ences). This implies a revolt against literary tradition (Pabst 1953: 1–
7). The power of natural desire, frequently assisted by the role of
chance, leads to an anarchic break with the established order that has
the character of an event (Schlaffer 1993: 22–3). The obvious eventful­
ness of the narratives, however, is not as such a theme of the author’s
theoretical statements (to be found in the introductory passages); it is
instead hidden behind his apologetic stance, which plays down the dis­
ruption of norms by diverting attention to the inferiority of the genre
(with its orality, colloquial language, conversational style, and function
of providing entertainment; Pabst 1953: 27–41, esp. 37). Contrasting
with the cases of eventfulness, however, we also find narratives aligned
with the medieval exemplum tradition. In this respect, the genre term
“novella” is not specific; it refers to what is new, but also to trivial and
contemporary affairs, frequently presented with the help of earlier sub­
ject matter.
83 Event and Eventfulness

Eventfulness II is first mentioned explicitly as a defining feature of

the Novelle by Goethe and participants in the German Novelle debate
of the 19th century, although they refer only to certain aspects of it and
then only in a formulaic manner (Swales 1977: 16, 21–6; Aust [1990]
2006: 26–36). The most concise formulation is to be found in Goethe’s
conversations with Eckermann (29 January 1827): “what is a Novelle if
not an unheard-of occurrence [Begebenheit] that has taken place.”
These words stress both the exceptional nature of an event and its spe­
cial, singular character of facticity (Perels 1998: 179–80, 181–89): in
Goethe’s usage, Begebenheit means a disquieting, decisive turn that
takes place in the public sphere or is significant in constituting the sub­
ject (cf. “Begebenheit,” in Goethe Wörterbuch 1989). This is also the
sense in which the term is used in the Conversations of German
Refugees (Goethe [1795] 1960: 188).
In the 19th century, Tieck and Heyse stand out for making the event
the defining property of the Novelle in their turning point and falcon
theories respectively. Tieck describes the central feature of the Novelle
as the “turn in the story, that point at which it unexpectedly begins to
take an entirely new course” (1829, reprinted in Kunz ed. [1968] 1973:
53). Heyse highlights the anomalous, the unusual as a defining feature
of the event, especially in his reference to the falcon (drawn from a
Boccaccio novella), in which he says that “the story, not the states, the
event, not the world-view reflected in it, are what matters here,” and
“the ‘falcon’ [is] the special quality that distinguishes this story from a
thousand others” (1871, reprinted in Kunz ed. [1968] 1973: 67–8; ital­
ics in original).

3.2 The Concept of Event in the Context of Tellability and

the “Point of the Narrative”

The event II concept has played no more than a peripheral role in nar­
rative studies to date. Aspects of the phenomenon, however, have been
highlighted in other contexts and in the guise of different terminology.
Discussions of tellability and the “point of the narrative” (Labov 1972:
366) are the main examples of such contexts; they have led to the sug­
gestion that events are one of the reasons why stories are narrated. An
early approach to describing narrative noteworthiness, in which the
term “tellability” was introduced, was put forward by Labov (1972:
363–70) in his study of everyday narratives. He used evaluation (366–
75) as a category for covering the means that the narrator uses to mark
what he calls the point of the narrative, its raison d’être. These include
external evaluation (direct identification), embedding (of utterances of
 Event and Eventfulness 84

a character or the narrator in the narrated happenings), evaluative ac­

tion (in which case emotional involvement in the decisive action is re­
ported), and evaluation by suspension of the action (in which case the
central aspect is highlighted by interrupting the reported action). Pratt
(1977: 63–78) transfers Labov’s approach to literature and shows that
his categories apply to literary narrative texts as well; the tellability of
a literary narrative, she suggests, is also dependent on the presence of
deviation from what is normal and on the relevance of such deviation
(132–51).
In contrast to Labov’s concentration on mediation techniques, Ryan
(1991: 148–66) develops a theory of tellability concerning the level of
the narrated happenings. Particularly relevant to eventfulness is her dis­
tinction between three types of progression in the narrated happenings
(155–56): (a) sudden switches in the plot, contrasts between the goals
and results of characters’ actions, and self-contradiction; (b) repetition
of narrative sequences (e.g. the three wishes or three attempts found in
fairy tales); and (c) elements of the narrated happenings that have mul­
tiple meanings (e.g. the marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta functions as a
reward, as a case of incest, and as the fulfillment of a prophecy). In a
second take on this issue, Ryan defines tellability in terms of the com­
plexity of the plot sequences that she situates in an “underlying system
of purely virtual embedded narratives” (156)—in, that is to say, a net­
work of realized and alternative, unrealized (desired, rejected, ima­
gined) courses of action. In this way, as with event II, but without the
term itself being used, the tellability of a story is derived from the
structure of its course and the complexity of that structure. However,
the equation of structural complexity with tellability is problematic, as
is the isolation of textual structures from (cultural, literary) contexts.
As a result, the definitions involved remain unspecific; for it is ques­
tionable whether complex texts are tellable simply because they are
complex, and whether tellability is really determined by the text alone.
A different kind of approach to defining tellability turns to conven­
tionalized genres rather than individual stories in its study of the cru­
cial points in plot development, which it examines in terms of structur­
al switches or contrasts. Kock (1978) represents an example of such an
approach. He draws a direct link between the interest that genres such
as tragedy, the story of quest or trickery in the fairy tale, and the detec-
tive novel awake in the reader and the genre-specific plot structures of
those genres. Kock describes the plot structures concerned with the
help of the concept of the narrative trope, which he uses to refer to as­
pects of the narrated happenings that have two functions, thereby gen­
erating tension between two levels (intention vs. outcome, appearances
85 Event and Eventfulness

vs. reality, surface vs. depth, etc.), and thus serve as the central motiva­
tion for reading. An example of this occurs when the protagonist in a
tragic or comic text unwittingly brings about a setback through his own
actions. This approach does, it is true, identify the crucial switches or
changes in the genres in question, but it too is nonetheless vulnerable
to the criticism outlined above regarding a definition of eventfulness
that is based purely on textual structure-cultural dependency, like the
relevance of text-internal norms, is ignored.

3.3 The Concept of Event in Historiographical Theory

The concept of event has a long, albeit changeable heritage in histori­

ography. The event, which usually lacked the foundations of an explicit
definition, was an accepted historiographical category until the turn of
the 19th century. Thereafter, however, it was subjected to increasing
theoretical criticism, first in France, later in Germany, too (Rathmann
2003: 3–11). This criticism, marked by concern for scientific accuracy,
was directed at aspects of the historical event that depend on interpreta­
tion: its singularity; its instantaneous nature; and the involvement of
the subject. Event-based history was superseded by structural history
and the history of ordinary life. Long-term tendencies, processes, struc­
tures, collective mentalities, and superindividual regularities were now
the object of attention. However, a renaissance of the event can be ob­
served in recent historiography; one factor at work here is the realiza­
tion that events are an irrefutably relevant aspect of historical pro­
cesses. Historical changes do not take place simply because of structur­
al conditions; they are set in motion as unpredictable and unique occur­
rences by individuals and individual actions (Rathmann 2003; Suter &
Hettling 2001; see also the volumes edited by these scholars).
The definition of eventfulness proposed in this context displays af­
finities with the narratological concept of the type II event (3.4 below).
Suter & Hettling (2001: 24–5) use three criteria to distinguish events
from simple happenings: (a) contemporaries must experience a se­
quence of actions as disquieting and breaking with expectations; (b) the
grounds on which the sequence of actions is considered surprising and
disquieting must be collective in nature—part, that is, of a social hori­
zon of expectations; and (c) the sequence of actions must result in
structural changes that are perceived and discursively processed by
those involved. Rathmann (2003: 12–4) argues that fulfillment of cri­
terion (c) alone, without criteria (a) and (b), is enough to constitute an
event if the change is presented and discursively mediated as a case of
major upheaval. This definition seeks to connect structure and the
 Event and Eventfulness 86

event, long held to be incompatible with one another, as mutually de­

pendent categories.
The affinities with the narratological type II event lie in contextual
reference, the importance of deviation, the role of relevance, the need
for interpretation and perception, and the discursive foundations of the
event. Differences exist regarding the point of reference, however:
Suter & Hettling and Rathmann suggest primarily that reference is
made to the consciousness of contemporaries, whereas narratologists
distinguish various points of reference: a change can be eventful for
characters, the narrator, the abstract author, or the intended (or actual)
reader. Equally, though, since incidents may turn out to be eventful
only in retrospect, the historian or a later generation can be postulated
as a possible frame of reference in the case of historical events.

3.4 Discussion of the Concept of Event in Literary Theory

The use of the concept of event to define narrativity in the debates of

literary theory supersedes (in most cases earlier) attempts to capture the
special quality of narration by referring to the role of mediation (e.g.
Friedemann 1910; Stanzel 1955; → mediacy and narrative mediation).
Event-based approaches are supported by the insight that, although rep­
resentations in language or other media—narratives, for example, but
also descriptions and arguments—are always mediated, narration alone
is set apart from other forms of discourse by the fact that what is rep­
resented is marked by temporality (Sternberg 2001: 115; Schmid 2003,
2005: 11–6). Accordingly, the representation of a change (of state, of
situation, of a form of behavior) that takes place in time has been iden­
tified as constitutive of narration, as in Ryan’s (1991: 124) explanation
of her “narrative as state-transition diagram:” “the most widely accept-
ed claim about the nature of narrative is that it represents a chronolo­
gically ordered sequence of states and events.” Similarly Herman
(2005: 151): “Events, conceived as time- and place-specific transitions
from some source state S […] to some target state S’ […], are thus a
prerequisite for narrative.” Approaches to a definition that are based on
changes in time can be divided into two basic types (cf. “Explication”
above): event I (general changes of any kind) and event II (changes that
meet further qualitative conditions).

3.4.1 Event I
The approaches to defining narrativity based on event I are many and
varied. Numerous theorists define the minimal story or identify the
event as a basic element of narration in the context of an operational
87 Event and Eventfulness

explication of the phenomenon of change of state. This is the back­

ground against which Prince (1973: 31) describes changes as causal-
chronological sequences of three elements: “A minimal story consists
of three conjoined events: The first and third events are stative, the
second active. Furthermore, the third event is the inverse of the first.”
“Event” here refers to stative and dynamic states of affairs (17). In a
later take on the issue, in his programmatic definition of a minimal
story, Prince ([1987] 2003: 28; emphasis in original) uses event to
mean a change: “event. a change of STATE manifested in DISCOURSE by a
process statement in the mode of Do or Happen.” Stempel (1973: 328–
30) defines the minimal narrative schema syntactically as a sequence of
sentential statements that meet the following conditions: the subjects
must have the same reference; it must be possible to contrast and cor­
relate the predicates; and the predicates must be chronologically
ordered. The same idea of the event is put forward, on a higher level of
abstraction, by Meister (2003: 116; emphasis in original): “by an EVENT
we understand the attribution of distinct properties to an identical event
object under a stable EVENT FOCUS” (the term “event focus” refers to the
point of reference for the change involved).
Todorov (1971: 39) defines change in time as a necessary compo-
nent of narration by referring to two principles of narrative: successive­
ness and transformation. By further distinguishing between different
kinds of transformation, he arrives at a typology of narrative organiza­
tion that should be understood as involving different kinds of event:
mythological, gnoseological, and ideological transformations—chan-
ges, that is, involving situation, cognition, or behavioral norms (40,
42). With respect to the basic elements of the structure of narrative pro­
gression, Todorov ([1968] 1977: 111) proposes a three-stage configura­
tion: initial equilibrium—destabilization—new equilibrium. Bremond
([1966] 1980: 387–88) sets out a more flexible dynamic way of model­
ing change in which alternatives are also considered. He puts forward
the idea of a three-part elementary sequence of events leading from the
virtuality (of a goal or an expectation), via the act of (non-) actualiza­
tion, to manifest (non-)realization, the attainment or non-attainment of
the goal, with amelioration or degradation as variants of change (390–
92).
Ryan (1991: 127–47) uses a similar kind of sequential structure
with multiple stages to classify events with reference to the causes or
driving forces behind them, particularly in terms of the level of inten­
tionality involved. Actions are contrasted with happenings (changes
with and without human causation respectively) and moves with pas-
sive moves (plan-based action and lack of action, respectively, as con­
 Event and Eventfulness 88

flict resolution). Ryan’s system also includes outcomes (the successes

or failures that result from actions) and plans (the planning of actions).
The study of linguistics has witnessed comparable efforts to draw up
predicate-based typologies of events or their components. Examples in­
clude Frawley (1992: 182–95), who distinguishes between statives, ac-
tives, inchoatives, and resultatives, and Vendler (1967), who distin­
guishes between activity, accomplishment, achievement, and state.
Drawing on Frawley and Vendler, Herman (2002: 27–51) refers to the
selection and linking of such event components in an attempt to define
individual narrative genres (e.g. the epic, newspaper articles, ghost
stories) in terms of their event structures. The undertaking is not a con­
vincing success, for it seems likely that the specific type of eventful­
ness associated with a genre can be identified only hermeneutically—in
terms of event II, that is—rather than on a linguistic level. It is also
questionable whether the distinctive nature of a genre can be delineated
so clearly from that of other genres or be captured in simple, general
formulas of this kind.
All these different ways of conceptualizing event I have two fea­
tures in common. (a) If they define narrativity in terms of temporality,
they do so with reference to the presence of change on the level of the
represented happenings. The necessity of linguistic mediation is high­
lighted in the process, but in the vast majority of cases this implies ref­
erence to changes in the narrated world alone, not to changes on the
level of discourse (presentation). The proposals regarding sentence-
based definitions (Stempel 1973; Todorov 1968; Prince 1973, 1987)
are no different in this respect. In the terminology of Meister (2003:
107–08, 114–16), we are dealing with object events, which he distin­
guishes from what he refers to as discourse events, wherein the
changes take place on the discourse level; the difference, though, con­
cerns merely the recipient’s acts of cognitive interpretation involving
the events. At any rate, all these definitions seek to achieve an objectiv­
izing operationalization of the definition of the event on the basis of
linguistic expressions without considering the scope of reference to lit­
erary contexts and normative social contexts as a source of meaning.
The hermeneutic role of the reader, that is to say, is excluded. (b) If dif­
ferent types of event are distinguished from one another, the aim is
either to provide no more than a qualitative classification of kinds of
change or to distinguish between different types of narrative on the
basis of such a classification (which, however, is inadequate as far as
the dimension of meaning is concerned). It was recognized at an early
date (Culler 1975: 205–07; Chatman 1978: 92–5) that the crucial pro­
cesses and aspects of meaning in narrative texts cannot be grasped by
89 Event and Eventfulness

means of categories, such as these, that can be formalized independ­

ently of interpretation and context.

3.4.2 Event II
Use of the concept of event in literary theory requires that type II
events meet certain additional conditions. Such conditions have been
identified from various perspectives, which will now be reviewed not
in historical order but systematically, progressing from approaches
concerned with definition to ones involving methodology and analysis,
in particular Lotman’s plot model, which has proved particularly pro­
ductive in practice.
In his discussion of the role of narration in structuring reality as part
of human existence, Bruner (1991) draws attention to all the central di­
mensions of eventfulness involved in event II: the hermeneutic com­
ponent; the modality of deviation; the place of norms as a point of ref­
erence; and context sensitivity. Bruner uses the idea of “hermeneutic
composability” (7–11) to stress the fact that stories do not exist in the
world, but depend for their existence on human consciousness to
provide the horizon against which they stand. He uses the phrase “ca­
nonicity and breach” (11–3) to describe how a precipitating event, re-
sulting in a break with expectations, a deviation from what is normal
and from routine scripts, is a necessary condition of tellability. Breaks
of this kind always involve norms (15–6). Finally, these features give
rise to the context sensitivity (16–8) that makes real-world narration
“such a viable instrument for cultural negotiation” (17).
In order to distinguish event II from event I, Schmid (2003, 2005:
20–7) defines additional criteria that a change of state must fulfill in
order to qualify as an event in this narrower sense. First, facticity and
resultativity are specified as necessary conditions. Eventfulness, that is
to say, requires that a change actually take place (rather than being
simply desired or imagined) and that it reach a conclusion (rather than
having simply begun or being in progress). These binary conditions are
supplemented by five properties that can be present to different degrees
and must also be displayed by a change, if it is to qualify as eventful in
the manner of a type II event. Changes, that is to say, are more or less
eventful depending on the extent to which these five properties are
present. Specifically, the criteria are those of relevance (significance in
the represented world), unpredictability (deviation from what is expect-
ed, from the principles of the general order of the world), effect (im­
plications of the change for the character concerned or the narrated
world), irreversibility (persistence and irrevocability of the change’s
consequences), and non-iterativity (singularity of the change).
 Event and Eventfulness 90

In theory, the necessary conditions of facticity and resultativity are

binary and context-independent, whereas the nature and magnitude of
the five additional criteria are predominantly dependent on cultural,
historical, or literary contexts and can be interpreted in different ways
by the various participants in narrative communication (→ author,
→ narrator, → characters, → reader). The extent to which a change in
the narrated world qualifies as significant, unpredictable, momentous,
or irreversible depends on the established system of norms, the conven­
tional ideas about the nature of society and reality, current in any given
case, but also on literary, e.g. genre-specific, conventions, and can
therefore vary historically between different mentalities and cultures.
This is ultimately true of facticity and resultativity as conditions for
full type II eventfulness, too. In certain historical cultural contexts,
changes that are only imagined or not fully realized can acquire (re­
duced) eventful status in so far as the act of imagining, planning, or
similar functions as a sign of a (beginning or faltering) change in a
character.
The relevance of a change can be evaluated differently from differ­
ent standpoints. Thus, the level of relevance often differs depending on
whether the point of reference is the real author, the narrator, or one or
more characters. In the case of unpredictability, we must distinguish
the expectations of protagonists from the scripts of author and reader.
What for a hero is an unpredictable event can for the reader be a cen-
tral part of a genre’s script. These criteria allow the role of interpreta­
tion, the modality of deviation, context sensitivity, and the relevance of
norms, as also suggested by Bruner, to be broken down into a spread of
features.
Lotman’s plot model (1970) offers a comprehensive approach that
combines a context-sensitive and norm-related concept of type II event­
fulness with a practical apparatus for analyzing texts in terms of their
event structures (Titzmann 2003: 3077–84; Hauschild 2009). Lotman
explicitly distinguishes two kinds of event: a basic concept of event of
the event I variety, described as “the smallest indivisible unit of plot
construction” (Lotman [1970] 1977: 233), and a concept of event of the
event II variety, assembled on a higher level, which he defines in terms
of spatial semantics as a “unit of plot construction,” writing that “an
event in a text is the shifting of a persona across the borders of a se­
mantic field” (233). By plot, Lotman means an eventful action se­
quence with three components: “1) some semantic field divided into
two mutually complementary subsets; 2) the border between these sub­
sets, which under normal circumstances is impenetrable, though in a
given instance (a text with a plot always deals with a given instance) it
91 Event and Eventfulness

proves to be penetrable for the hero-agent; 3) the hero-agent” (240; em­

phasis in original). A semantic field represents a normative order, sub­
divided like any other order into two binary subsets, set apart, that is,
from what it is not. Lotman uses topological terms as the basis for his
definition of an event, but he stresses the normative relevance of the
definition by pointing out that normative values (e.g. good vs. evil, rul­
ing vs. serving, valuable vs. worthless) tend to be described using spa­
tial images and oppositions (e.g. above vs. below, right vs. left, open
vs. closed, near vs. far, moving vs. stationary). Thus, Lotman’s spatial
semantics should be understood as a metaphor for non-spatial, norma-
tive complexes.
The concept of the semantic field is shaped by Lotman’s belief that
artistic language represents a “secondary modeling system” (9), that is,
that its function in creating world structure is culturally and historically
specific and in this respect embodies the link between text and context.
In this way, Lotman takes the semantic field with its binary subdivi­
sions as a point of reference for establishing and elucidating the norma-
tive dimension of eventfulness and also its dependence on cultural and
social historical contexts. Whether or not a change (e.g. the marriage of
a female servant and a nobleman) is eventful depends on the histori­
cally variable class structure of society (such a marriage was eventful
in 18th-century England; it would be so to a far lesser degree, if at all,
in the 21st century). Determining eventfulness is therefore a hermeneut­
ic process.
Lotman defines as plotless a text that simply describes a normative
framework and anchors the characters in both subspaces without the
possibility of change—a text, that is to say, whose only function is one
of classification. By adding the mobility of one or several characters, a
boundary crossing, to this plotless substrate, a text that possesses plot
is created and an event produced (237–38). An event therefore repre-
sents a violation of the established order, a deviation from the norm, in
extreme cases a “revolutionary event” (238). The boundary between
the subsets can, according to how strict the system of norms is and how
stable its order, be more or less impermeable, making it possible for
events to have different levels of eventfulness, to be positioned at vari­
ous points on the plot scale (236).
Lotman’s plot model provides a powerful set of tools that makes it
possible to describe with precision the many forms and degrees of
eventfulness in narrative texts. The protagonist, for example, can be in­
tegrated into the second semantic subset, and thereby become immo-
bile, after the boundary crossing has taken place; but he can also return
to the first subset and negate the event (meaning that the established or­
 Event and Eventfulness 92

der and norms are affirmed) or remain in motion, set forth again, and
go through another important change, triggering a realignment of field
structure (what was the second subset becomes the first subset of a new
overall and differently defined field; 240–41).
Renner (1983, 2004), Titzmann (2003), and Krah (1999) seek to in­
crease the practical suitability of Lotman’s model for textual analysis
by refining its concepts and formalizing its categories. Renner (1983,
2004) reformulates Lotman’s spatial metaphor in terms of set theory,
describing the normative regularities of the semantic space as a set of
“ordering statements” so that spatial change can be redefined as a suc­
cessive process of disruption, removal, or replacement of such ordering
statements. This picture of how the boundary crossing takes place
provides a more precise impression of it as a potentially progressive, as
opposed to instantaneous, phenomenon. An important prerequisite for
this refinement lies in the observation that spaces are not homogeneous
but can display a graded structure with respect to their ordering prin­
ciples: at some stage, changing position within the space, the protago-
nist, because of his cumulative opposition to the dominant ordering
statements, reaches an extreme point that qualifies as an event (the ex­
treme point rule). It is questionable, however, whether Renner’s ex­
treme formalization of Lotman’s categories really represents a step for­
ward for analysis in practice. Titzmann (2003) puts forward two addi­
tional categories to supplement those of Lotman. First, he introduces
the concept of the meta-event, which involves not only the passage of
the protagonist from the first to the second subset as a result of his
boundary crossing, but also the modification of the entire field, the
world order itself (if, for example, the boundary crossing results in the
social opposition between the subsets being reconfigured as a morally
defined division in the field). Second, Titzmann introduces the concept
of the modalization of semantic spaces, which accounts for the fact that
it is possible for subsets to differ from one another in terms of their
modality (as dreams, fantasies, wishes contrasting with reality). Sub­
categories of spatial opposition and boundary crossing, in particular,
are suggested by Krah (1999: 7–9) in the context of a closer study of
certain aspects of the concept of space. Subspaces can represent
autonomous alternatives in formal terms, or they can be related to one
another functionally as contrastive spaces or by their relationship to a
certain standpoint (system/environment, inside/outside). Spatial subdi­
visions can also be conceptually defined in many ways, in terms, for
example, of nature vs. culture, home vs. foreign, normality vs. devia-
tion, past vs. present, everyday vs. exotic, as well as from a gender-spe­
cific perspective. An event can take place in the form of a boundary
93 Event and Eventfulness

crossing by a character in which that character retains his features un­

changed or, alternatively, adopts opposing ones (adapts to the other
field); or an event can also—as a meta-event (Titzmann 2003)—take
place as a transformation of the spatial opposition. This corresponds to
forms of event-leveling (by which Krah means ways of continuing after
an event has taken place): return to the initial space, absorption into the
opposing space, or metaleveling (retracting the reorganization of the
spatial opposition). Typologies of this kind allow the phenomenon of
eventfulness to be identified more precisely in texts, thereby supplying
a prerequisite for a closer analysis of it.
Members of the Narratology Research Group in Hamburg have
combined Lotman’s plot and concept of events with schema theory
(→ schemata) to produce a text model designed around narrative the­
ory and a practical model for narratological analysis that includes a de­
tailed typology of events (Hühn & Schönert 2002; Hühn & Kiefer
2005; Hühn 2005, 2008; Schönert et al. 2007). Reference is made to
lyric poetry on the one hand, to narrative literature on the other. The
approach stresses the fact that eventfulness is dependent on cultural
and historical context, and it proposes that the relevant contexts be
treated in terms of the schemata (frames and scripts) called to mind and
activated by the text—that is, the meaning-bearing cultural or literary
patterns relevant in each case (such as conventional patterns for how to
proceed in choosing a partner, etc., or literary, genre-specific plot
schemata). The presence of eventfulness results from deviation from a
script, from a break with expectations. With this in mind, schema theo-
ry (whose script concept makes it possible to model processes of
change) and plot theory in the Lotman style (which uses the boundary
crossing to model deviation and break with the norm) can be combined
in the search for a precise definition of eventfulness (Hühn 2008). As
levels of deviation can be more or less pronounced, eventfulness is not
an absolute quality, but relative and a matter of degree: a text can be
more or less eventful depending on the amount of deviation involved
(Schmid 2003, 2005).
Eventful changes involve a participant in the action (an agent or a
patient) and can be located on various levels of textual structure
(→ narrative levels). Correspondingly, three types of event can be dis­
tinguished (Hühn, in Hühn & Kiefer 2005: 246–51, 2008). In events in
the happenings, the crucial change affects the protagonist on the level
of the narrated happenings, i.e. one or more characters in the narrated
world. Presentation events involve the extradiegetic level, since they
concern the narratorial figure as an agent, the story of the narrator
(Schmid 1982). In reception events, the crucial change takes place
 Event and Eventfulness 94

neither on the level of the happenings nor on that of presentation, since

its occurrence involves neither the protagonist nor the narrator as
agent. Instead, it must be enacted by the (ideal) reader in place of the
protagonist or the narrator because they are unwilling or unable to do
so, as in the dramatic monologue (Browning, Tennyson) or in Joyce’s
Dubliners. In such cases, a full expression of the event is distinctively
omitted from the text. This prompts readers to undergo an eventful
mental change or arrive at a decisive increase in understanding—in
both cases ‘against’ the text. In the context of practical analysis, this
differentiation between event types, based on the structure of the nar­
rative text, can be combined with Krah’s concrete categorizations.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) The historical dimension of the category of event, i.e. its relation­
ship to different types of culture and social world orders, remains open
to study: does it appear—as a sign of the new—more frequently in
periods when traditional orders are disintegrating or being weakened
(in the modern and modernist periods)? Are events to be found in tradi­
tion-bound societies or cultures that operate in terms of tradition and
continuity? It would be interesting in this respect to provide a compari-
son with narrative texts from ‘distant’ cultures not yet affected by the
West (South America, Asia, Africa). (b) The potent concept of event
forged by Lotman is particularly well suited for use with literary narra-
tive texts. How might we describe points of eventfulness, or tellability,
in the case of other text types (anecdotes, news reports, newspaper arti-
cles, jokes, gossip, etc.) that also involve surprises and the unexpected?
(c) The expression of the concept of event in other literary genres, such
as drama and lyric poetry, requires consideration. (d) It is also neces­
sary to investigate the expression of the concept of event in other me­
dia, particularly film and painting.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Aust, Hugo ([1990] 2006). Novelle. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Bremond, Claude ([1966] 1980). “The Logic of Narrative Possibilities.” New Literary
History 11, 387–411.
Bruner, Jerome (1991). “The Narrative Construction of Reality.” Critical Inquiry 18,
1–21.
95 Event and Eventfulness

Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Culler, Jonathan (1975). Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study
of Literature. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Frawley, William (1992). Linguistic Semantics. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Friedemann, Käte ([1910] 1965). Die Rolle des Erzählers in der Epik. Darmstadt:
WBG.
Goethe, Johann W. von ([1795] 1960). Goethes Werke. Vol. VI: Romane und Novellen.
Eds. B. v. Wiese & E. Trunz. Hamburg: Wegner.
Goethe Wörterbuch (1989). 2 Vols. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Halliwell, Stephen (1987). The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary.
London: Duckworth.
Hauschild, Christiane (2009). “Jurij M. Lotmans semiotischer Ereignisbegriff: Versuch
einer Neubewertung.” W. Schmid (ed). Slavische Narratologie: Russische und
tschechische Ansätze. Berlin: de Gruyter, 141–86.
Herman, David (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
– (2005). “Events and Event-Types.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclope­
dia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 151–52.
Hühn, Peter (2005). “Plotting the Lyric: Forms of Narration in Poetry.” E. Müller-
Zettelmann & M. Rubik (eds). Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric.
Amsterdam: Rodopi, 147–72.
– (2008). “Functions and Forms of Eventfulness in Narrative Fiction.” J. Pier &
J. Á. García Landa (eds). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 141–63.
– & Jens Kiefer (2005). The Narratological Analysis of Lyric Poetry: Studies in
English Poetry from 16th to the 20th Century. Berlin: de Gruyter.
– & Jörg Schönert (2002). “Zur narratologischen Analyse von Lyrik.” Poetica 34,
287–305.
Kock, Christian (1978). “Narrative Tropes: A study of points in plots.” G. D. Caie et al.
(eds). Occasional Papers 1976–1977. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 202–52.
Krah, Hans (1999). “Räume, Grenzen, Grenzüberschreitungen: Einführende Überle­
gungen.” Kodikas/Code 22, 3–12.
Kunz, Josef, ed. ([1968] 1973). Novelle. Darmstadt: WBG.
Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Ver­
nacular. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P.
Lotman, Jurij M. ([1970] 1977). The Structure of the Artistic Text. Ann Arbor: U of
Michigan P.
Meister, Jan Christoph (2003). Computing Action: A Narratological Approach. Berlin:
de Gruyter.
Pabst, Walter (1953). Novellentheorie und Novellendichtung: Zur Geschichte ihrer An­
tinomie in den romanischen Literaturen. Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter.
Perels, Christoph (1998). “Der Begriff der Begebenheit in Goethes Bemerkungen zur
Erzählkunst.” Ch. P. Goethe in seiner Epoche. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 177–89.
Pratt, Mary Louise (1977). Towards a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse.
Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Prince, Gerald (1973). A Grammar of Stories: An Introduction. The Hague: Mouton.
 Event and Eventfulness 96

– ([1987] 2003). A Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.

Rathmann, Thomas (2003). “Ereignisse Konstrukte Geschichten.” Th. R. (ed). Ereig­
nis: Konzeptionen eines Begriffs in Geschichte, Kunst und Literatur. Köln: Böhlau,
1–119.
Renner, Karl Nikolaus (1983). Der Findling: Eine Erzählung von Heinrich von Kleist
und ein Film von George Moorse. Prinzipien einer adäquaten Wiedergabe narra­
tiver Strukturen. München: Fink.
– (2004). “Grenze und Ereignis: Weiterführende Überlegungen zum Ereigniskonzept
von J. M. Lotman.” G. Frank & W. Lukas (eds). Norm―Grenze―Abweichung:
Kultursemiotische Studien zu Literatur, Medien und Wirtschaft. Passau: Stutz,
357–81.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Schlaffer, Hannelore (1993). Poetik der Novelle. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Schmid, Wolf (1982). “Die narrativen Ebenen ‘Geschehen,’ ‘Geschichte,’ ‘Erzählung’
und ‘Präsentation der Erzählung’.” Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 9, 83–110.
– (2003). “Narrativity and Eventfulness.” T. Kindt & H.-H. Müller (eds). What Is
Narratology? Questions and Answers Regarding the Status of a Theory. Berlin: de
Gruyter, 17–33.
– (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Schönert, Jörg, et al. (2007). Lyrik und Narratologie: Text-Analysen zu deutschspra­
chigen Gedichten vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Stanzel, Franz (1955). Die typischen Erzählsituationen im Roman. Dargestellt an Tom
Jones, Moby-Dick, The Abassadors, Ulysses u.a. Wien: Braumüller.
Stempel, Wolf-Dieter (1973). “Erzählung, Beschreibung und der historische Diskurs.”
R. Koselleck & W.-D. Stempel (eds). Geschichte―Ereignis und Erzählung.
München: Fink, 325–45.
Sternberg, Meir (2001). “How Narrativity Makes a Difference.” Narrative 9, 115–22.
Suter, Andreas & Manfred Hettling (2001). “Struktur und Ereignis―Wege zu einer So­
zialgeschichte des Ereignisses.” A. Suter & M. Hettling (eds). Struktur und Ereig­
nis. Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 7–32.
Swales, Martin (1977). The German ‘Novelle.’ Princeton: Princeton UP.
Titzmann, Michael (2003). “Semiotische Aspekte der Literaturwissenschaft: Literatur­
semiotik.” R. Posner et al. (eds). Semiotik / Semiotics. Berlin: de Gruyter, vol. 3,
3028–103.
Todorov, Tzvetan ([1968] 1977). “The Grammar of Narrative.” T. T. The Poetics of
Prose. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 108–19.
– (1971). “The 2 Principles of Narrative.” Diacritics 1, 37–44.
Vendler, Zeno (1967). Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell UP.

5.2 Further Reading

Audet, René, et al. (2007). Narrativity: How Visual Arts, Cinema and Literature are
Telling the World Today. Paris: Dis Voir.
97 Event and Eventfulness

Czucka, Eckehard (1992). Emphatische Prosa: Das Problem der Wirklichkeit der Er­
eignisse in der Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Steiner.
Hühn, Peter & Jens Kiefer (2007). “Approche descriptive de l’intrigue et de la
construction de l’intrigue par la théorie des systèmes.” J. Pier (ed). Théorie du ré­
cit. L’apport de la recherche allemande. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires
du Septentrion, 209–26.
Kędra-Kardela, Anna (1996). “An (Un)Eventful Story: ‘Events’ in Frank O’Connor’s
Short Story ‘The Frying Pan’.” L. S. Kolek (ed). Appoaches to Fiction. Lublin: Fo­
lium, 71–80.
Korthals, Holger (2003). Zwischen Drama und Erzählung: Ein Beitrag zur Theorie ge­
schehensdarstellender Literatur. Berlin: Schmidt.
Koselleck, Reinhart & Wolf-Dieter Stempel, eds. (1973). Geschichte―Ereignis und
Erzählung. München: Fink.
Lotman, Jurij M. (2009). “Zum künstlerischen Raum und zum Problem des Sujets.” W.
Schmid (ed). Russische Proto-Narratologie. Texte in kommentierten Übersetzun­
gen. Berlin: de Gruyter, 261–89.
Meuter, Norbert (2004). “Geschichten erzählen, Geschichten analysieren. Das narrati­
vistische Paradigma in den Kulturwissenschaften.” F. Jäger & J. Straub (eds).
Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften: Paradigmen und Disziplinen. Stuttgart:
Metzler, vol. 2, 140–55.
Naumann, Barbara (2003). “Zur Entstehung von Begriffen aus dem Ungeordneten des
Gesprächs.” Th. Rathmann (ed). Ereignis: Konzeptionen eines Begriffs in Ge­
schichte, Kunst und Literatur. Köln: Böhlau, 103–18.
Nünning, Ansgar (2007). “Grundzüge einer Narratologie der Krise: Wie aus einer
Situation ein Plot und eine Krise (konstruiert) werden.” G. Grunwald & M. Pfister
(eds). Krisis! Krisenszenarien, Diagnosen und Diskursstrategien. München: Fink,
48–71.
Scherer, Stefan (2003). “Ereigniskonstruktionen als Literatur.” Th. Rathmann (ed). Er­
eignis: Konzeptionen eines Begriffs in Geschichte, Kunst und Literatur. Köln:
Böhlau, 63–84.
 Fictional vs. Factual Narration
Jean-Marie Schaeffer

1 Definition

Factual and fictional narrative are generally defined as a pair of oppo-

sites. However, there is no consensus as to the rationale of this opposi­
tion. Three major competing definitions have been proposed: (a) se­
mantic definition: factual narrative is referential whereas fictional
narrative has no reference (at least not in “our” world); (b) syntactic
definition: factual narrative and fictional narrative can be distinguished
by their logico-linguistic syntax; (c) pragmatic definition: factual nar­
rative advances claims of referential truthfulness whereas fictional nar­
rative advances no such claims. One could add a fourth definition,
narratological in nature: in factual narrative author and narrator are the
same person whereas in fictional narrative the narrator (who is part of
the fictional world) differs from the author (who is part of the world we
are living in) (Genette [1991] 1993: 78–88). But this fourth definition
is better seen as a consequence of the pragmatic definition of fiction.

2 Explication

2.1 The Validity of the Fact/Fiction Opposition

Poststructuralist philosophers, anthropologists and literary critics have

questioned the validity of the fact/fiction distinction as such, some­
times contending, in a Nietzschean vein, that fact itself is a mode of
fiction (a fictio in the sense of a “making up”). Applied to the domain
of narrative, this approach insists on the “fictionalizing” nature of nar­
rative because every narrative constructs a world. But at least in real-
life situations, the distinction between factual and fictional narrative
seems to be unavoidable, since mistaking a fictional narrative for a fac­
tual one (or vice versa) can have dramatic consequences.
One could object to this common-sense assertion that not all socie-
ties produce fictional narratives and that often the socially most impor-
tant narratives, notably myths, cannot be accounted for in terms of the
99 Fictional vs. Factual Narration

dichotomy between fact and fiction. But even if it may be true that fic­
tional narrative as a socially recognized practice is not an intercultur­
ally universal fact, all human communities seem to distinguish between
actions and discourses that are meant to be taken “seriously” and others
whose status is different: they are recognized as “playful pretense” or
as “make-believe.” Furthermore, developmental psychology and com­
parative ethnology have shown that the distinction between representa­
tions having truth claims and “make-believe” representations is crucial
in the ontogenetic development of the cognitive structure of the infant
psyche and that this phenomenon is transcultural (see Goldman & Em­
mison 1995; Goldman 1998). Finally, as far as myth is concerned, it is
clearly considered a type of factual discourse: people adhere to it as
serious discourse referring to something real (this is also the case of the
Bible; see Sternberg 1985, 1990). As shown by Veyne (1983), the so­
cial construction of “truthful discourse” posits an array of “truth pro­
grams” linked to various ontological domains (e.g. the profane as
distinct from the sacred). Thus “myth” can be “true” (i.e. treated as se-
rious and referring to some reality), even if believing in its truth enters
into conflict with what in another ontological domain is accepted as
truthful. For example, in myth and its corresponding reality, people can
be endowed with powers nobody would imagine them having in every­
day life. This does not imply that there is no distinction between fact
and fiction, but that what counts as a fact may be relative to a specific
“truth program.”
The poststructuralist criticism of the fact/fiction dichotomy has
pointed out that every (narrative) representation is a human construc­
tion, and more precisely that it is a model projected onto reality. But
the fact that discourse in general, and narrative discourse in particular,
are constructions does not by itself disqualify ontological realism or the
distinction between fact and fiction. To rule out ontological realism, it
would be necessary to show independently that the constructive nature
of discourse in general or of narrative in particular makes them fiction­
al or at least implies a “fictionalizing” dynamics. This proof has never
been delivered, and so the common-sense hypothesis remains the de­
fault option.

2.2 Fact and Fiction, Narrative and Non-narrative

The relationship between → narratology and theory of fiction long re­

mained inexistent, in part because classical narratology rarely ad­
dressed the question of the fact/fiction difference. The theory was
intended to be valid for all narratives, although in reality the classical
 Fictional vs. Factual Narration 100

narratologists drew only on fictional texts. The classical models by

Genette (1972, 1983) and Stanzel (1964, 1979), for example, were gen­
eral narratologies whose sole input was fictional texts. It was only at a
later stage that narratologists explicitly investigated the relationship
between narrative techniques and the fictionality/factuality distinction
(Genette 1991; Cohn 1999).
It is important, therefore, that the problem of the distinction
between factual and fictional narrative be placed in its wider context.
First, not every verbal utterance is narrative, nor is every referential ut­
terance narrative. Thus discursive reference cannot be reduced to nar­
rative reference. More generally, reference is not necessarily verbal: it
can also be visual (e.g. a photograph makes reference claims without
being of a discursive nature). The same holds for fiction. Not every fic­
tion is verbal (paintings can be, and very often are, fictional), and not
every fiction, or even every verbal fiction, is narrative: both a painted
portrait of a unicorn and a verbal description of a unicorn are fictions
without being narrations. Factual narrative is a species of referential
representation, just as fictional narrative is a species of non-factual rep­
resentation. And of course not every verbal utterance without factual
content is a fiction: erroneous assertions and plain lies are also utter­
ances without factual content. Indeed, fiction, and its species narrative
fiction, are best understood as a specific way of producing and using
mental representations and semiotic devices, be they verbal or not. This
means that narrative and fiction are intersecting categories and must be
studied as such (see Martínez & Scheffel 2003).

2.3 Types of Fiction

The difficulty of getting a clear picture of the distinction between fac­

tual and fictional narrative results in part from a long history of shifting
uses of the term “fiction.” The sense which is most current today—that
of a representation portraying an imaginary/invented universe or world
—is not its original nor its historically most prominent domain of refer­
ence. In Latin, fictio had at least two different meanings: on the one
hand, it referred to the act of modeling something, of giving it a form
(as in the art of the sculptor); on the other hand, it designated acts of
pretending, supposing, or hypothesizing. Interestingly, the second sense
of the Latin term fictio did not put emphasis on the playful dimension
of the act of pretending. On the contrary, during most of its long his­
tory, “fiction,” stemming from the second sense of the Latin meaning,
was used in reference to serious ways of pretending, postulating, or hy­
101 Fictional vs. Factual Narration

pothesizing. Hence the term has usually been linked to questions of ex­
istence and non-existence, true and false belief, error and lie.
In classical philosophy, “fiction” was often used to designate what
we today would call a cognitive illusion (→ illusion). Hume used the
term in this sense when he spoke about causality or about a unified
self, calling them “fictions” (Hume [1739] 1992: Bk I, Pt IV, Sec VI).
Now, this type of fiction, as Hume himself explicitly stated, is quite
different from fiction in the artistic field. It is part of the definition of a
cognitive fiction that it is not experienced as a fiction. A narrative fic­
tion, by contrast, is experienced as a fiction. This means that narrative
fictions, contrary to cognitive fictions, should not produce real-world
beliefs (even if in fact they sometimes do: fiction has its own patholo­
gies).
The term fiction has also often been used to designate willful acts of
deception intended to be misleading or to produce false beliefs. In this
sense, deceptive fiction resembles cognitive fiction. But in the case of
willful deception, the production of a false belief depends at least
partly on the existence of true beliefs entertained by the person en­
gaged in deceiving others: to induce willfully false beliefs, one must
hold at least some correct beliefs concerning the state of affairs about
which false beliefs are to be produced, for otherwise the result of will­
ful deception will be haphazard. Willful deception (lies and manipula­
tions) are, once again, quite different from narrative fiction, which im­
plies that at some level pretense is experienced as pretense.
In science, the term is sometimes applied to theoretical entities pos­
tulated to account for observational regularities which otherwise would
be unexplainable. Electrons and other elementary particles have been
called “fictions” in this sense. “Fiction,” used this way, does not desig­
nate something known to be non-existent, but is rather the hypothetical
postulation of an operative entity whose ontological status remains in­
determinate. Theoretical fictions are postulated entities whose ontolo­
gical status remains unclear but which operate in real-world cognitive
commitments. Here again, the situation is quite different from fictional
entities in the context of narrative fiction: such entities do not operate
in real-world commitments. On the other hand, and contrary to theoret­
ical entities, narrative fictional entities are entities which, if they exist-
ed, or if their existence were asserted, would have a canonical ontologi-
cal status, part of the real stuff of reality. So the difference is the fol­
lowing: in the case of theoretical fictions, fictionality is due to the fact
that the ontological status (theoretical terms/real entities) of the entities
is indeterminate; in the case of narrative fictions, fictionality is due to
 Fictional vs. Factual Narration 102

the fact that the entities are not inferentially linked to real-world exis-
tential propositions.
Finally, the term is also used to designate thought experiments.
Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment and Putnam’s Brain in a
Vat or Twin Earth thought experiments are fictions in this sense of the
word. Thought experiments are generally counterfactual deductive
devices giving rise to valid conclusions which are integrated into the
real-world belief system. Superficially, this may seem to be a situation
which resembles that of narrative fiction, but in fact, a narrative fiction
cannot be a thought experiment in the technical sense. The principal
reason why this assimilation is impossible is that the mental experience
induced by a narrative fiction and its validation are very different from
those of a thought experiment, for the attitude adopted when creating
or reading a thought experiment is an attitude of logical discrimination:
we have to verify its formal validity, determine whether or not it is con­
clusive, think about how its relevance could be increased or refuted,
etc. Validating (or rejecting) a thought experiment is achieved through
technical controversies between specialists who accept it or not, refor­
mulate or modify it using criteria of logical consistency and necessity.
A narrative fiction, by contrast, is activated in an immersive way: it is
“lived” and stored in the reader’s or spectator’s memory as a universe
closed on itself. As far as validating it is concerned, this is also quite
different from validating a thought experiment, since one would not
say of an narrative fiction that it is conclusive or faulty, but rather that
it is successful or unsuccessful in terms of its “effectiveness” as a vec­
tor of immersion, its richness as a universe, etc. In other words, its “fe­
licity conditions” are tied primarily to its immersion-inducing effec-
tiveness and to its capacity for producing an aesthetically satisfying ex­
perience of its mimetic and artifactual properties. Admittedly, narrative
fictions can be evaluated in terms of the consistency of the fictional
universe or in those of their plausibility in relation to supposed real-
world situations or in terms of the desirable character or not of their ex­
plicit or implicit standards. But all this has nothing to do with validat­
ing a thought experiment. To state the difference more bluntly: a
thought experiment is an experimental device of a logical nature, a sup­
positional or counterfactual propositional universe intended to help re­
solve a philosophical problem; a narrative fiction, by contrast, invites
mental or perceptual immersion in an invented universe, engaging the
reader or the spectator on an affective level with the persons and events
that are depicted or described.
103 Fictional vs. Factual Narration

2.4 Mimesis and the Fact/Fiction Distinction

Historically (at least in Western culture), the key concept for analyzing
and describing fiction in the sense of artistic and, more specifically,
narrative fiction has not been the Latin concept of fictio, but the Greek
concept of mimesis. Unfortunately, mimesis, like fictio, is far from be­
ing a unified notion. In fact, the first two important discussions of
mimesis, in Plato’s Republic (1974: chap. III and X) and a little later in
Aristotle’s Poetics, develop two quite divergent conceptions which
have structured Western attitudes toward fiction up to this day. Plato’s
theory of representation is founded on a strong opposition between im­
itation of ideas and imitation of appearances (the empirical world): rep­
resentation of events as such, contrary to rational argument, is an imita­
tion of appearances, which means that it is cut off from truth. He fur­
ther posits a strong opposition between mimesis and diegesis. Speaking
about stories and myths, he distinguishes between: (a) a pure story
(haple diegesis), in which the poet speaks in his own name (as in dithy­
rambs) without pretending to be someone else; (b) a story by mimesis
(imitation), in which the poet speaks through his characters (as in
tragedy and comedy), meaning that he pretends to be someone else; (c)
a mixed form combining the two previous forms (as in epic poetry,
where pure narration is mixed with characters’ discourse). Plato’s pref­
erence goes to pure narration, for he disapproves of representation by
mimesis (in Book X of The Republic, he goes so far as to exclude mi­
metic artists from the “ideal city”). Mimesis is a simulacrum, an “as
if,” and as such it is opposed to truth: mimesis can never be more than
a “make-believe” (for the concept of “make-believe,” see Walton
1990).
The concept of mimesis developed by Aristotle in his Poetics di­
verges from Plato in several important regards. For the fact/fiction
problem, only one is of interest: according to Aristotle, mimesis is a
specific form of cognition. Mimetic representation is even considered
by Aristotle to be superior to history because poetry expresses the gen­
eral (i.e. the probable or necessary relations between events), while his­
tory only expresses the particular (that which has happened): history
relates the life of the individual Alcibiades, while poetry is a mimetic
rendering of the typical actions that an Alcibiades-like individual
would probably or by necessity carry out (1996: chap. 9, 1451b). This
means not only that, according to Aristotle, mimesis triggers cognitive
powers of a different kind from those of history, but also that these
powers are of a higher order than those of factual discourse. Most clas­
sical literary theories which assert that fiction possesses its own truth
 Fictional vs. Factual Narration 104

value do so by reactivating some form or another of the Aristotelian

distinction between “mere” factual truth representing contingent actu­
alities and a more “general” type of truth, that of verisimilitude or of
necessity, representing onto-logical possibilities.
The Aristotelian conception must be distinguished from “possible
worlds” theories of fiction (Pavel 1986; Ryan 1991; Ronen 1994;
Doležel 1998, 1999), inspired by the possible worlds logics of Kripke
(1963, 1980) or Lewis (1973, 1978). In terms of possible worlds theo-
ries, a fictional world is a counterfactual world, but this counterfactual
world is as individual as the world we live in: the counterfactual world
is not of a superior kind to our actual world (whereas in Aristotle mi­
metic reference attains a higher order of truth than factual reference),
but simply an alternative world. In fact, the real world is also a possible
world. According to modal fictionalism, it differs from other possible
worlds because it is the only one which is also actual, whereas accord­
ing to the modal realism defended by Lewis, it differs from other pos­
sible worlds (which are as real as “our” world) only by the contingent
fact that we happen to live in it. Possible worlds theories of fiction
therefore do not claim that fictional truth is more general than factual
truth: it is simply true in another world or universe.

3 History of the Concepts and their Study

3.1 The Semantic Definition of the Fact/Fiction Difference

The semantic definition of the distinction between factual and fictional

narrative is the most classical one. It was defended by Frege in his fa-
mous “On Sense and Reference” (1892) and by Russell in the no less
famous “On Denoting” (1905), two seminal papers of 20 th-century
philosophical theories of reference. It emphasizes the ontological status
of represented entities and/or the truth value status of the proposition
or the sequence of propositions which assert these entities. The ontolo­
gical status of entities and the truth value status of propositions are re­
lated, since an assertion which states something about an entity that is
non-existent is ipso facto referentially void. But it is important to bear
in mind, firstly, that some types of fiction assign “fictive” properties
and actions to proper names that refer to existing entities. This is the
case for example of the subgenre of counterfactual novels which, like
counterfactual history (see Ferguson ed. 1997), ascribe fictional actions
to historical persons (e.g. Hitler winning World War II). Autofiction
can be seen as a special case of such counterfactual fictions. Secondly,
historical persons and descriptions of their real historical actions figure
105 Fictional vs. Factual Narration

prominently in fictional texts, as in historical novels that often contain

a fair amount of factual information.
These mixed situations are difficult to integrate into a semantic
definition of the fact/fiction distinction (see e.g. Zipfel 2001), since se­
mantic definitions (with the exception of possible worlds semantic
definitions: see Doležel 1999) are by necessity “segregationist” (Pavel
1986: 11–7). Counterfactual fictions seem on the face of it easy to
manage, at least in terms of possible worlds semantic models. These
models being ontologically holistic, it can be said, for example, that a
narrative in which Napoleon wins the battle of Waterloo is not an ex­
ample of outright falsehood, but refers to a possible world in which Na­
poleon wins the battle of Waterloo. But is it the same Napoleon? The
principle of “minimal departure” (Lewis 1973; Ryan 1991) suggests a
positive answer, but the holism of the possible worlds approach (each
possible world being complete) suggests a negative answer. Whatever
the answer, it is difficult to distinguish counterfactual fiction from
counterfactual history on these grounds. Other mixed situations are
even more difficult to handle. For example, the sentence “Napoleon
lost the battle of Waterloo” seems to express a plain simple truth. Does
its status change when it is read in a historical novel as compared to
when it is read in a biography of, say, Chateaubriand or Stendhal?
Does it lose its truth value when it is integrated into a novel? Most ad­
vocates of semantic definitions of the fact/fiction dichotomy give a
positive answer to this question: the proper name Napoleon, when used
in the novel, does not refer to the real Napoleon but to some fictional
counterpart (e.g. Ryan 1991; Ronen 1994). However, this seems coun­
terintuitive, for in a historical novel it is important for the reader that
the proper names referring to historical persons really do refer to the
historical persons as he knows them outside of fiction, and not to some
fictional homonym of those real persons (see Searle 1975). Counterfac­
tual fictions give rise to an analogous problem: it seems counterintui-
tive to say that in an autofiction, for example, proper names lose their
referential power, since the point of autofiction is precisely the idea
that fictional assertions apply to an existing person (the author
himself).
This does not amount to saying that semantic criteria are irrelevant,
for the idea that there is a semantic difference between fact and fiction
certainly is part of our conception of fiction. Thus a narrative in which
every sentence is true (referentially) and which nevertheless pretends
to be a fiction would not be easily accepted as a fiction. Invented enti-
ties and actions are the common stuff of fiction, and for this reason the
idea of the non-referential status of the universe portrayed is part of our
 Fictional vs. Factual Narration 106

standard understanding of fictional narrative. Even so, this does not ne­
cessarily mean that a semantic definition of fiction is workable.

3.2 Syntactic Definitions

Syntactic definitions of the distinction between factual and fictional

narrative commend themselves by their promise of economy: if it were
possible to distinguish factual and fictional narrative on purely syntac-
tic grounds, there would be no need to take a position as far as seman-
tic problems are concerned, be they epistemological or ontological. It
would then be possible to arrive at a purely “formal” definition of the
two domains.
The best-known theories that seek to define fiction on a syntactic
level have been elaborated by Hamburger (1957) and Banfield (1982).
Both theories define fictional narrative by syntactic traits which, in the­
ory, are excluded from factual narrative. Hamburger famously stated
that the domain of what is usually regarded as fiction divides into two
radically disjoined fields: “pretense,” which is a simulation of real ut­
terances and defines the status of first-person non-factual narrative; and
“fiction proper,” which is a simulation of imaginary universes indexed
to perspectively organized mental states and which defines non-factual
third-person narrative. In other words, according to Hamburger, in the
narrative realm only third-person narrative is fictional, non-factual
first-person narrative belonging to another logical field, that of pretend-
ed utterances. Hamburger, at least in the first edition of her book
(1957), contends that, contrary to pretense, fiction is narratorless, a
view sharply opposed to mainstream narratology according to which
the narrator (not necessarily personified) is a structural element of any
narration, be it factual or fictional, first-person or third-person. Ban­
field, although her theory is formulated in a much more technical way
(based on Chomskyan generative grammar), defends a position similar
to that of the German critic. She develops a “grammatical definition”
(Banfield 1982, 2002) of the genre “novel,” which in fact is a defini­
tion of internally focalized heterodiegetic fiction. Among the anomalies
defining the novel understood this way, Banfield puts particular em­
phasis on the specific use of deictics and free indirect discourse. Ac­
cording to her theory, the specific grammar of the novel consists in a
double phenomenon: elimination of the first person except in inner di-
rect speech coinciding with the construction of a special third-person
pronoun (called “the E-level shifter” by Banfield). This special shifter
suspends the “one text / one speaker” rule that governs discourse out­
side of fiction and which is grounded in the principle that deictics shift
107 Fictional vs. Factual Narration

referent with each new E (each new speaker). In a novel, a new point of
view need not correspond to a new referent of the first person and
hence to a new text. This situation is of course impossible in real-life
communication, where each point of view is tied to a specific person.
Therefore, fictional sentences are “unspeakable.” In fact, Banfield’s
“E-level shifter” is functionally equivalent to Hamburger’s floating
“narrative function” which can move freely between different “I-ori­
gins.”
Hamburger and Banfield have clearly identified linguistic processes
which are typical of internally focalized heterodiegetic fiction (→ fo­
calization) and which cannot be easily accounted for in terms of pre­
tense in third-person factual narrative. This is especially true of free in­
direct discourse and grammatical anomalies of spatial and temporal
deictics. All of these phenomena are tied to what Banfield aptly calls a
“special” third-person pronoun which is able to shift freely between
different Egos. They invite an analysis of fictional narrative in terms of
direct simulation of imaginary universes presented perspectively and
(on the side of the reader) in terms of immersion (see Ryan 2001: 89–
171). The symptoms of fictionality (see Schmid 2005: 37–46) analyzed
by Hamburger and Banfield all share the same characteristic: they use a
third-person grammatical perspective to present a first-person mental
(perceptual, etc.) perspective (Schaeffer 1998: 148–66, 1999: 179–97).
On the side of the writer, these deviating practices are in fact the gram­
matical third-person transcription of the imaginative simulation of
“fictive I-origins” (→ character). On the side of the reader, they acti-
vate an immersive dynamics: the reader “slips into” the characters, ex­
periencing the fictional world as it is seen perspectively by the charac­
ters from within or sometimes, as Banfield suggests, from a point of
view that remains empty (in terms of a specific “I”).
Contra Hamburger and Banfield, however, it is no less true that the
majority of heterodiegetic fictions also contain elements that are best
described as simulations of factual narrative statements (Schaeffer
1999: 61–132). The textual passages which Banfield calls “pure narra­
tion,” and which correspond to Plato’s haple diegesis, are a case in
point. Furthermore, if we look at the history of narrative fiction, the
systematic use of internal (variable) focalization is fairly recent (as
Banfield and Hamburger acknowledge). If we take a broad historical
and intercultural outlook, it appears that heterodiegetic fictions without
any element of formal mimesis in third-person factual narrative are re-
latively rare except in some 19th-century fiction and, more frequently,
in the 20th-century fiction. So instead of interpreting the symptoms of
fictionality in an essentialist way and trying to use them as definitional
 Fictional vs. Factual Narration 108

criteria of fiction, as Hamburger and Banfield do, we should study

them in a historical, cultural, and cognitive perspective: why did verbal
fiction in the course of its evolution develop devices aimed at neutraliz­
ing the enunciative structure of language in favor of a purely “presenta­
tional” use? To our best knowledge, the answer to this question has to
do with the processes of immersive simulation induced by narrative
and maximized by fictional narrative.
Whatever the importance of the insights gained by syntactic defini­
tions of the fact/fiction distinction, as definitions they have severe
shortcomings: to accept them, it would be necessary either to exclude
first-person narration from the realm of fiction (Hamburger) or to dis­
tinguish between a grammar of epic narration and a grammar of the
novel (Banfield). More generally, it would be necessary to accept the
counterintuitive conclusion that most fictional texts fall short of the
definition of fiction. If semantic definitions of fiction are generally too
weak (they fail to distinguish between a fiction and a lie), syntactic
definitions are generally too strong (many texts must be excluded
which common sense considers to be fictional).

3.3 The Pragmatic Status of Narrative Fiction:

Imagination and Playful Pretense

The pragmatic definition of fiction is generally linked to the name of

Searle, who is certainly its most important proponent, even though the
idea of defining fiction pragmatically is much older than Searle. A
pragmatic theory of narrative fiction was implicitly defended by Hume.
It could be argued, more generally, that wherever and whenever public
representations function as fictions, people link them to their pragmatic
specificity because it is only by treating representations in this particu­
lar way that they become fictional representations (instead of false
statements or lies). Even so, Searle’s definition of verbal fiction in
terms of pretended speech acts ([1975] 1979: 58–75) is certainly one of
the most important and influential contemporary pragmatic analyses of
the fact/fiction distinction in the domain of verbal narrative.
Walton, whose contribution to a pragmatics of fiction is as impor-
tant as Searle’s, objected to the latter’s definition that the notion of a
pretended speech act cannot yield a general definition of fiction be­
cause it has no application in, among other things, the domain of
pictorial depiction: paintings cannot be described in terms of pretended
speech acts because pictorial depiction is not a speech act (1990: Part I,
2.6). It could be argued, however, that Searle’s theory operates at two
levels: a definition of verbal narrative fiction in terms of pretended
109 Fictional vs. Factual Narration

speech acts, and a general definition of fiction in terms of intended

playful pretense. It has also been objected to Searle that his definition
of fiction as intended playful pretense is unable to explain the fact that
many texts intended to be factual end up being read as fictions. Walton
argues that fictional intention cannot be a defining property of fiction:
a fiction is any object which serves as a prop in a game of make-be­
lieve, meaning that a fiction is a fiction because it functions as such in­
dependently of the question of whether or not somebody intended it to
function in that way. Walton is surely right, but Searle’s interest lies
primarily in the canonical public status of narrative fiction, and most of
the time narrative texts which publicly function as props in a game of
make-believe or as playful pretenses are intended to function in this
way and, more importantly, have been specifically designed to do so.
So if it is true that fictional intention cannot define fiction as a prag­
matic stance, it is nevertheless the existence of a shared intention
which explains the fact that the emergence of fictional devices has the
cultural and technical history it has.
It is important to distinguish the question of the structural function
of intentionality from that of the communication of that intentionality.
According to Searle, public representations only possess derived inten­
tionality, which implies that mental intentionality is not transparent
across minds: it has to be communicated by conventional means, i.e.
using verbal or other signals. This is true also for the intention of fic­
tionality: as shown by Koselleck (1979), the intention to create a factu­
al or a fictional text has to be communicated by signals to be effective.
These signals are often paratextual, but for the competent reader there
also exist many textual “signposts” (Cohn 1990) signaling fictionality
or factuality (see Iser 1983: 121–52).
The pragmatic definition of fiction also highlights the difference
between narrative fiction qua playful or artistic fiction and the types of
fiction which are tied to the question of truth value and belief. Narra-
tive fiction qua artistic fiction is not opposed to truth in the way cogni-
tive illusion, error, and manipulation are opposed to truth, nor is it con­
strained by real-world truth conditions in the way the suppositional and
counterfactual fictions of thought experiments are. As propounded by
Searle, it is best characterized by the irrelevance of real-world truth
conditions. In the light of this pragmatic definition, what distinguishes
fictional narrative from factual narrative is not that the former is refer­
entially void and the latter referentially full. What distinguishes them is
the fact that in the case of fictional narrative the question of referential­
ity is irrelevant, whereas in non-fictional narrative contexts it is impor-
 Fictional vs. Factual Narration 110

tant to know whether the narrative propositions are referentially void or

not.
Searle has been criticized for excluding the possibility of any syn­
tactical criterion of fictionality (Cohn 1990). In fact, he only claims
that syntactical markers of fictionality are neither necessary (a fictional
text can be textually indistinguishable from a factual counterpart) nor
sufficient (a factual text may use fictional techniques). The same fact
was pointed out long ago by Hume: one and the same text may be read
both as fiction and non-fiction. The text (in its syntactic and semantic
dimensions) remains the same whatever the type of pragmatic attitude,
but the use to which it is put will differ according to the pragmatic atti­
tude (see Hume [1739] 1992: Bk I, Pt III, Sec VII). So Searle’s thesis is
compatible with the fact that fictional texts and factual texts generally
differ syntactically.
A more important criticism is that Searle’s pragmatic definition is
only negative: it tells us what fiction is not, but not what fiction is.
Genette (1991: chap. 2), while accepting Searle’s definition of fiction
as a series of non-serious utterances, proposed to amend it by distin­
guishing two levels of illocution: a literal level—the level of the pre­
tended speech acts—concealing a figural or indirect level that transmits
a serious speech act (a declaration or a demand) which declares fiction­
ally that such and such an event occurred, or, alternatively, invites the
reader to imagine the content transmitted by the pretended speech acts
(see Crittenden 1991: 45–52; Zipfel 2001: 185–95).
In conclusion, the pragmatic definition claims that the syntactic
status of fiction depends on its formal make-up, its semantic status on
its relationship to reality, but that its status as fiction (or not) depends
on the way the representations implemented by the text are processed
or used. This would imply that the pair fact/fiction is logically hetero­
geneous. The conditions for satisfying the criteria of factual narrative
are semantic: a factual narrative is either true or false. Even if it is will­
fully false (as is the case if it is a lie), what determines its truth or its
untruth is not its (hidden) pragmatic intention, but that which is in fact
the case. The conditions for satisfying the criteria of fictional narrative
are pragmatic: the truth claims a text would make if it (the same text,
from the syntactic point of view) were a factual text (be these claims
true or false) must be bracketed out.

3.4 Simulation, Immersion and the Fact/Fiction Divide

In recent years, theories of fiction and narratology have been renewed

by cognitive science (→ cognitive narratology). The notion of simula­
111 Fictional vs. Factual Narration

tion and its cognate immersion seem especially fruitful and may well
lead to a better understanding of both the distinction between fact and
fiction in narrative and their interplay.
Simulation and playful pretense are basic human capacities whose
roots are situated in mental simulation, a partly sub-personal process
(Dokic & Proust 2002: intro., vii). Could it be that the mental spe­
cificity of fictional narrative is to be found in mental simulation? Actu­
ally, simulation is a very broad concept which encompasses much more
than fiction. Theories of mental simulation were originally developed
in order to account for “mind reading,” i.e. the ability to explain and
predict the intentional behaviors and reactions of others. The assump­
tion of simulation theories is that the competence of mind reading
makes it possible to put oneself imaginatively “into someone else’s
shoes.” It is true that mind reading has a strong narrative component, as
the “mind reader” immerses himself in scenarios and scripts. But, of
course, not every narrative is fictional.
Basically it can be said that if every fiction results from a process of
mental simulation, the opposite is not the case, i.e. that every simula­
tion produces a fiction. Mind reading has a strong epistemic compon­
ent: (a) it simulates the mental states of a really existing person; (b)
simulation must reproduce that person’s intentional states in a reliable
way, i.e. it is constrained by the necessity of correctly identifying and
assessing the real properties of the person whose mental states are be­
ing simulated as well as by the context in which that person is found. In
the case of fictional simulation, however, the agents and actions are in­
vented in and through the process of simulation. This process is not ref­
erentially constrained and cannot be validated or invalidated in a direct
way (e.g. by a comparison between behaviors predicted by the simula­
tion and an actually occurring behavior). This means that, contrary to
the results of mind reading, the results of a fictional narrative simula­
tion are not fed into ongoing real-world interactions. Fictional (narra-
tive) simulation is not only off-line representational activity (as is
every simulation), but also a pragmatically encapsulated activity of
simulation. Except for pathological cases, the postulated entities of fic­
tional representations are not fed into our belief system concerning the
trappings of the real world. Among other things, mental representations
triggered by fictional simulation are not fed into real-world feedback
loops. This does not mean that make-believe beliefs do not play into
the inferential processes concerning real-world situations, but that this
“playing into” is pretty much indirect.
Cognitive science also has shown that simulation and immersive
processes are not limited to fictional narratives. Every narrative in­
 Fictional vs. Factual Narration 112

duces varying degrees of immersive experience. As Ryan has convin­

cingly shown, both fictional and non-fictional narrative texts invite
readers to imagine a world (2001: 93): this “recreative” imagination
(Currie & Ravenscroft 2002) is a process of immersive simulation. Of
course, contrary to referentially oriented representing devices, fictional
devices are generally (but not always and not necessarily) constructed
so as to maximize their immersion-inducing power. Nevertheless, nar­
rative immersion is not limited to fiction.
Another point where simulation theories could be illuminating con­
cerns the ongoing debate in narrative studies as to whether, as is the
case in factual narrative, narrative (heterodiegetic) fiction implies the
existence of a → narrator or not. What is at stake here is in fact the
question of the target domain of narrative immersion: does the reader
or spectator immerge into a (fictional) world, or into a narrative act de­
picting a world? Does narrative fiction induce immersion through mi­
metic primers feigning descriptive utterances, or simply through a
perspectively organized mentally centered and phenomenologically sat­
urated presentation of a universe? As Currie & Ravenscroft (2002)
have shown, both options are open, depending on the structure of the
text.
Finally, simulation theories may also help to achieve a better under­
standing of the grammatical deviations or anomalies of internal focal-
ization in heterodiegetic fictional narrative as studied by Hamburger
and Banfield. These “deviations” are not the result of conscious stipu­
lations or decisions, but rather they have arisen slowly out of the prac­
tice of writing fiction. At the same time, they are not random, but on
the contrary structurally coherent and functionally pertinent. It could
therefore be hypothesized that they are the result of deep-level linguis-
tic rearrangements due to cognitive-representational pressures stem­
ming from the immersive process of mental simulation. If such were
the case, and if these linguistic anomalies were to be read as a coopta­
tion of language by fictional simulation, this would imply that at some
deep level the immersion induced by verbal narrative is never only pro­
positional, but also phenomenological and imaginative. The fact that
the evolution of third-person fiction has given rise to techniques for
neutralizing the enunciative anchoring of sentences could be inter­
preted as a symptom of the fact that narration as such induces this type
of phenomenological immersion. The difference between factual and
fictional narrative as far as simulation is concerned could thus be ex­
plained by the fact that once narrative is liberated from the epistemic
constraints of truth value, the real aim of the immersive process be­
113 Fictional vs. Factual Narration

comes how to maximize it. This in turn would serve to account for the
development of the anomalies studied by Hamburger and Banfield.

4 Bibliography

4.1 Works Cited

Aristotle (1996). Poetics. Tr. M. Heath. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Banfield, Ann (1982). Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the
Language of Fiction. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
– (2002). “A Grammatical Definition of the Genre ‘Novel’.” Polyphonie—lin­
guistique et littéraire / Lingvistik og litterær polyfoni N° 4, 77–100.
Cohn, Dorrit (1990). “Signposts of Fictionality.” Poetics Today 11, 753–74.
– (1999). The Distinction of Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Crittenden, Charles (1991). Unreality: The Metaphysics of Fictional Objects. Ithaca:
Cornell UP.
Currie, Gregory & Ian Ravenscroft (2002). Recreative Minds. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Dokic, Jérôme & Joëlle Proust (2002). Simulation and Knowledge of Action. Amster­
dam: Benjamins.
Doležel, Lubomír (1998). Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins UP.
– (1999). “Fictional and Historical Narrative: Meeting the Postmodernist Challenge.”
D. Herman (ed.). Narratologies: New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis. Colum­
bus: Ohio State UP, 247–73.
Ferguson, Niall, ed. (1997). Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactual. London:
Picador.
Frege, Gottlob ([1862] 1960). “On Sense and Reference.” P. Geach & M. Black (eds).
Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Oxford: Blackwell.
56–78.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Cornell:
Cornell UP.
– ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
– ([1991] 1993). Fiction and Diction. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Goldman, Laurence (1998). Child’s Play: Myth, Mimesis and Make-Believe. New
York: Berg.
– & Michael Emmison (1995). “Make-Believe Play among Huli Children: Perform­
ance, Myth, and Imagination.” Ethnology 34, 225–55.
Hamburger, Käte ([1957] 1973). The Logic of Literature. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Hume, David ([1739] 1992). Treatise of Human Nature. Buffalo: Prometheus Books.
Iser, Wolfgang (1983). “Akte des Fingierens. Oder: Was ist das Fiktive im fiktionalen
Text?” D. Henrich & W. Iser (eds). Funktionen des Fiktiven. München: Fink, 121–
52.
Koselleck, Reinhard (1979). Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten.
Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
 Fictional vs. Factual Narration 114

Kripke, Saul (1963). “Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic.” Acta Philosophica

Fennica 16, 83–94.
– (1980). Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Lewis, David (1973). Counterfactuals. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
– (1978). “Truth in Fiction.” American Philosophical Quarterly 15, 37–46.
Martínez, Matías & Michael Scheffel (2003). “Narratology and Theory of Fiction: Re­
marks on a Complex Relationship.” T. Kindt & H.-H. Müller (eds). What Is Narra­
tology: Questions and Answers Regarding the Status of a Theory. Berlin: de
Gruyter, 221–38.
Pavel, Thomas (1986). Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Plato (1974). The Republic. Tr. L. Desmond. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Ronen, Ruth (1994). Possible Worlds in Fictional Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP.
Russell, Bertrand ([1905] 2005). “On Denoting.” Special Issue: 100 Years of “On De­
noting.” Mind 114, 873–87.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
– (2001). Narrative as Virtual Reality. Immersion and Interactivity in Literature
and Electronic Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Schaeffer, Jean-Marie (1998). “Fiction, Pretense and Narration.” Style 32, 148–66.
– (1999). Pourquoi la fiction? Paris: Seuil.
Schmid, Wolf (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Searle, John ([1975] 1979). “The logical status of fictional discourse.” J. S. Expression
and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 58–75.
Stanzel, Karl K. (1964). Typische Formen des Romans. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht.
– ([1979] 1984). A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Sternberg, Meir (1985). The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and
the Drama of Reading. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
– (1990). “Time and Space in Biblical (Hi)story Telling: The Grand Chronology. ” R.
Schwartz (ed). The Book and the Text: The Bible and Literary Theory. Ox­
ford: Blackwell.
Veyne, Paul (1983). Les Grecs croyaient-ils à leurs mythes? Paris: Seuil.
Walton, Kendall (1990). Mimesis as Make-Believe. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Zipfel, Frank (2001). Fiktion, Fiktivität, Fiktionalität: Analysen zur Fiktion in der Li-
teratur und zum Fiktionsbegriff in der Literaturwissenschaft. Berlin: Schmidt.

4.2 Further Reading

Palmer, Alan (2002). Fictional Minds. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Pratt, Mary Louise (1977). Towards a Speech Act Theory of Narrative Discourse.
Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Vaihinger, Karl ([1911] 1984). The Philosophy of “As If”. A System of the Theoretical,
Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind. London: Routledge.
Zunshine, Lisa (2006). Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Colum­
bus: Ohio State UP.
 Focalization
Burkhard Niederhoff

1 Definition

Focalization, a term coined by Genette (1972), may be defined as a

selection or restriction of narrative information in relation to the expe-
rience and knowledge of the narrator, the characters or other, more hy­
pothetical entities in the storyworld.

2 Explication

Genette introduced the term “focalization” as a replacement for →

“perspective” and “point of view.” He considers it to be more or less
synonymous with these terms, describing it as a mere “reformulation”
([1983] 1988: 65) and “general presentation of the standard idea of
‘point of view’” (84). This, however, is an underestimation of the con­
ceptual differences between focalization and the traditional terms.
Genette distinguishes three types or degrees of focalization—zero,
internal and external—and explains his typology by relating it to previ­
ous theories. “The first term [zero focalization] corresponds to what
English-language criticism calls narrative with omniscient narrator and
Pouillon ‘vision from behind,’ and which Todorov symbolizes by the
formula Narrator > Character (where the narrator knows more than
the character, or more exactly, says more than any of the characters
knows). In the second term [internal focalization], Narrator = Charac­
ter (the narrator says only what a given character knows); this is narra-
tive with ‘point of view’ after Lubbock, or with ‘restricted field’ after
Blin; Pouillon calls it ‘vision with.’ In the third term [external focaliza­
tion], Narrator < Character (the narrator says less than the character
knows); this is the ‘objective’ or ‘behaviorist’ narrative, what Pouillon
calls ‘vision from without’” ([1972] 1980: 188–89).
The passage synthesizes two models: a quasi-mathematical one in
which the amount of narrative information is indicated by the formulas
derived from Todorov; and a more traditional one based on the meta­
phors of vision and point of view, which is derived from Pouillon and
116 Focalization

Lubbock. That these two models are not equivalent has been shown by
Kablitz (1988). If a novel begins by telling us who a character is, to
whom she is married, and for how long she has been living in a certain
town, it will reveal no more than the character knows herself, but no
one would describe such a beginning as an example of “vision with” or
character point of view. To tell a story from a character’s point of view
means to present the events as they are perceived, felt, interpreted and
evaluated by her at a particular moment.
Genette himself leans in the direction of the Todorovian, informa­
tion-based model. On occasion, he talks about focalization in terms of
the point-of-view paradigm, e.g. when he describes it as placing narra-
tive focus at a particular “point” ([1983] 1988: 73); but in general, he
thinks of focalization in terms of knowledge and information. He thus
defines it as “a restriction of ‘field’ […], a selection of narrative in­
formation with respect to what was traditionally called omniscience”
([1983] 1988: 74). This emphasis is also implied by the very term itself
and the preposition that goes along with it. Genette consistently writes
“focalisation sur” in French: while a story is told from a particular
point of view, a narrative focuses on something. This preposition indi-
cates the selection of, or restriction to, amounts or kinds of information
that are accessible under the norms of a particular focalization. If focal­
ization is to be more than a mere “reformulation” of point of view, it is
this aspect of the term, the information-based model, which should be
emphasized.
Genette’s emphasis on knowledge and information is also revealed
by his extensive treatment of alterations ([1972] 1980: 194–98),
defined as a transgression of the informational norm established by the
focalization of a text. Alterations take two forms: paralepsis, the inclu­
sion of an event against the norm of a particular focalization; and
paralipsis, a similarly transgressive omission of such an event. Accord­
ing to Genette, the norms that are violated by these transgressions can­
not be defined in advance (e.g. by commonsensical inferences as to
what a particular narrator may have learnt about the story he or she
tells). Instead, the norms are established by each particular text: “The
decisive criterion is not so much material possibility or even psycho­
logical plausibility as it is textual coherence and narrative tonality”
(208). Shen disagrees with this view, arguing that it boils down to a
merely quantitative approach, a measurement of the relative length of
the normative and the transgressive portions of the text; she suggests
that there is a more general “legitimacy” that is violated by alterations
(2001: 168–69). However, her examples and her analyses show that
“legitimacy” in matters of focalization is far from self-evident. In her
 Focalization 117

case, it rests on rather arbitrary assumptions about the limited knowl-

edge of first-person narrators and the unlimited knowledge of third-per­
son narrators.
A major point in Genette’s theory is his rigorous separation between
focalization and the narrator (referred to with the grammatical meta­
phor of “voice”). Most previous theories analyze such categories as
first-person narrator, omniscience, and camera perspective under one
umbrella term, usually point of view. Genette believes that such cava­
lier treatments of the subject “suffer from a regrettable confusion […]
between the question who is the character whose point of view orients
the narrative perspective? and the very different question who is the
narrator—or, more simply, the question who sees? and the question
who speaks?” ([1972] 1980: 186). What follows from the separation of
the two questions is a plea for a relatively free combination of narrator
types and focalization types, a position that has ignited a considerable
amount of controversy.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Genette’s theory was welcomed as a considerable advance on the pre­

vious paradigm of perspective or point of view, and the neologism of
focalization has been widely adopted, at least by narratologists.
Genette himself claims that his term is preferable because it is less
visual and metaphorical than the traditional ones ([1972] 1980: 189).
Other critics prefer it because it is not part of everyday speech and thus
more suitable as a technical term with a specialized meaning (Bal
[1985] 1997: 144; Nünning 1990: 253; Füger 1993: 44). However, the
main argument is that the term dispels the confusion of the questions
who sees? and who speaks? This argument has become a veritable
commonplace (e.g. Bal [1985] 1997: 143; Edmiston 1991: X; O’Neill
1992: 331; Rimmon-Kenan [1983] 2002: 71; Nelles 1990: 366; Nün­
ning 1990: 255–56). Finney states it as follows: “‘Focalization’ is a
term coined by Gérard Genette to distinguish between narrative agency
and visual mediation, i.e. focalization. ‘Point of View’ confuses speak­
ing and seeing, narrative voice and focalization. Hence the need for
Genette’s term” (1990: 144). It is true that Genette introduces the term
focalization immediately after his polemics against the typological con­
flation of who sees? and who speaks?, but he does not establish a con­
nection between these polemics and his neologism—nor is there such a
connection. As a term, focalization dispels the confusion of seeing and
speaking no more than the traditional terms do. On the contrary, the
connection between the question who sees? and point of view should be
118 Focalization

a little more evident than between who sees? and focalization. It is per­
fectly possible to embrace Genette’s scheme, including the separation
and free combination of narrator and focalization types, while referring
to his three focalizations as points of view.
The case that the advocates of focalization have made for its superi­
ority to point of view is by no means beyond dispute. Nor is it im­
proved by the fact that some of them use the new term while still think­
ing along the lines of the old, overlooking the semantic differences
between them and neglecting the new conceptual emphasis of the ne-
ologism. Füger, for example, explains that internal and external focal-
ization can be distinguished by the “situation of the agent of the pro­
cess of perception” (1993: 47), which is nothing but a roundabout para­
phrase of point of view. A characteristic instance of the reinterpretation
of focalization in terms of point of view is a change of preposition in
the English translation of Genette’s study: “[L]e mode narratif de la
Recherche est bien souvent la focalisation interne sur le héros” (1972:
214). “[T]he narrative mood of the Recherche is very often internal fo­
calization through the hero” ([1972] 1980: 199). The rendering of sur
as through speaks volumes. It seems that the translator is under the
spell of the point-of-view paradigm. Instead of thinking about focaliza­
tion as a selection of or a focusing on a particular region of the story­
world—in this case the mind of the protagonist—the translator regards
this mind as a kind of window through or from which the world is per­
ceived.
Bal’s influential revision of Genette’s theory is another example of
the reinterpretation of focalization in terms of point of view, although
she is more aware of this than others. Thus she admits that perspective
“reflects precisely” what she means by focalization ([1985] 1997: 143),
and she points out that Genette ought to have written “focalisation par”
instead of “focalisation sur” (1977: 29). The continuing influence of
the point-of-view paradigm also seems to underlie Bal’s reconceptual­
ization of Genette’s typology in terms of focalizing subjects and focal­
ized objects. According to her, the distinction between Genette’s zero
focalization and his internal focalization lies in the agent or subject that
“sees” the story (the narrator in the first case, a character in the
second); the difference between Genette’s internal and external focal-
ization, however, has nothing to do with the subject that “sees” but
with the object that is “seen” (thoughts and feelings in the first case,
actions and appearances in the second). Thus she ends up with a system
of two binary distinctions that replace Genette’s triple typology. There
are two types of focalization: character-bound or internal (Genette’s in­
ternal focalization) and external (Genette’s zero and external focaliza­
 Focalization 119

tion combined into one). Furthermore, there are two types of focalized
objects: imperceptible (thoughts, feelings, etc.) and perceptible (ac­
tions, appearances, etc.).
At least some of the elements in this reconceptualization result from
Bal’s adherence to the point-of-view paradigm, notably the elimination
of the distinction between Genette’s zero and external types (merged
by Bal into external focalization). Within the point-of-view model, this
change makes some sense. If one thinks about Genette’s zero and ex­
ternal focalization in terms of a point from which the characters are
viewed, this point would appear to lie outside the characters in both
cases. However, if one thinks in terms of knowledge and information,
zero and external focalization are worlds apart. The first provides us
with complete access to all the regions of the storyworld, including the
characters’ minds, whereas in the second the access is extremely lim­
ited and no inside views are possible.
While it is possible to explain the motivation of Bal’s modifications
of Genette’s theory by pointing out her adherence to point of view, it
must be said that, in themselves, these modifications are hardly com­
pelling. It is simply erroneous to claim that Genette’s zero and external
types are distinguished by the focalizing subjects, whereas his internal
and external types differ in the focalized objects. All of Genette’s fo­
calizations vary, among other things, in the range of objects that can be
represented; his zero focalization and his internal focalization (distin­
guished in terms of the focalizing subjects by Bal) are also dissimilar in
this respect. Furthermore, the “focalized object” is a misleading
concept: the crucial distinction concerning such objects is between
“perceptible” and “imperceptible” ones, which means that the subjec-
tive element of perception that Bal has previously eliminated is reintro­
duced by way of the adjective. As Edmiston writes: “[T]he focalizer
can be characterized by his objects of focalization, despite Bal’s efforts
to separate them [...]. Subject and object [of focalization] may be anal-
yzed separately, but they cannot be dissociated totally, as though there
were no correlation between them” (1991: 153).
Another feature of Bal’s theory, pointed out and criticized by Jahn,
is “that […] any act of perception (brief or extended; real, hypothetical
or fantasized) presented in whatever form (narrated, reported, quoted,
or scenically represented) counts as a case of focalization” (Jahn 1996:
260). This is a problematic premise, which perhaps stems from taking
Genette’s question who sees? rather too literally. It ultimately reduces
the analysis of focalization to a paraphrase of narrative content, to
identifying acts of perception. However, if a narrative tells us that
Mary sees John, it would appear to depend very much on how this is
120 Focalization

told and what the context is whether the narrative is also focalized “by”
(to use Bal’s preferred preposition) Mary. However, Bal is not the only
one to equate focalization with perception. This premise is also shared
by Herman & Vervaeck (2004), Margolin (2009) and Prince, who ex­
plicitly states that his “discussion links focalization only to the percep­
tion of the narrated by (or through, or ‘with’) an entity in that narrated”
(2001: 47).
The equation of focalization with perception is also made by David
Herman in “Hypothetical Focalization” (1994), a critical reading of this
article revealing the problems inherent in the equation. Drawing on
possible-worlds semantics, Herman examines passages that explicitly
describe what might have been seen at a particular point in the story if
there had been someone to see it. Thus, in Poe’s “The Fall of the House
of Usher,” the narrator invokes an imaginary onlooker of this kind
when he describes the house: “Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observ­
er might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending
from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall
[…]” ([1839] 1956: 97–8). There is a basic problem with Herman’s ar-
ticle. What he discusses is not hypothetical focalization, but hypothe-
tical perception. The discovery of the fissure by Poe’s imaginary ob­
server is hypothetical only in comparison with the case of a character
actually seeing this fissure. In terms of the focalization of Poe’s story,
the discovery is not hypothetical at all for the simple reason that the
narrator utters it. It has an effect on the focalization in that it contrib­
utes to the distancing of the narrating I from the experiencing I: the
narrating I knows there was a fissure because he has seen it very
clearly at the end of the story, whereas the experiencing I seems to be
unaware of it when he approaches the house for the first time. Gener­
ally speaking, instances of hypothetical perception would appear to
point in the direction of zero focalization (or narratorial point of view
in the traditional paradigm), just like the “report [of] what a character
did not in fact think or say” discussed by Chatman ([1978] 1980: 225).
Hypothetical focalization in the strict sense is a focalization option that
is conceivable but not realized in a text, such as an internally focalized
version of Fielding’s Tom Jones. Whether a text itself can achieve or
suggest such hypothetical focalization is an interesting question await­
ing an answer.
While Bal’s revision of Genette’s theory involves deletions such as
“external focalization,” it also contains additions, notably the “focal­
izer,” i.e. the “agent that sees” in a given focalization (Bal [1985] 1997:
146). This concept has spawned a considerable amount of controversy,
including a more specific debate about the question of whether narra-
 Focalization 121

tors can be focalizers. Bal, Phelan (2001) and many others assume that
both characters and narrators can be focalizers; Chatman (1990) and
Prince (2001) argue that characters can focalize while narrators cannot.
Genette, on the other hand, rejects character focalizers but concedes,
with some reluctance, the possibility of regarding the narrator as a fo­
calizer ([1983] 1988: 72–3). However, he does not see any great need
for the term, an attitude shared by Nelles, who considers it redundant
(1990: 374). The skepticism of the latter two critics seems to be justi­
fied. To talk about characters as focalizers is to confuse focalization
and perception. Characters can see and hear, but they can hardly focal­
ize a narrative of whose existence they are not aware. This leaves us
with the narrator (or the author?) as the only focalizer, an inference
whose interest is primarily scholastic. If all the different focalization
options can be attributed to one agent, this attribution does not provide
us with any conceptual tools that we can use in distinguishing and anal-
yzing texts.
Furthermore, the concept of focalizer is misleading because it sug­
gests that a given text or segment of text is always focalized by one
person, either the narrator or a character. But this is a simplification.
Consider the famous beginning of Dickens’s Great Expectations in
which Pip, the first-person narrator, tells us how, as a little orphan, he
visited the graves of his family and drew some highly imaginative con­
clusions about his relatives from the shape of their tombstones. This
passage focuses on the thoughts and perceptions of the boy, but it also
communicates the knowledge and the attitude of the adult narrator,
primarily through style (elaborate language, ironically inflated lexis,
etc.). It makes little sense here to ask whether or not the boy is the fo­
calizer in this passage. It is more appropriate to analyze focalization as
a more abstract and variable feature of the text, wavering between the
knowledge and the attitudes of the adult narrator and the experience of
the child character.
To sum up, the various theoretical innovations introduced by the ad­
vocates of focalization are fraught with considerable problems; focal-
ization is hardly so much superior to point of view that the old term can
be discarded. Niederhoff (2001) compares the meanings and merits of
the terms, making a case for peaceful coexistence of and complemen-
tarity between the two. There is room for both because each highlights
different aspects of a complex and elusive phenomenon. Point of view
seems to be the more powerful metaphor when it comes to narratives
that attempt to render the subjective experience of a character; stating
that a story is told from the point of view of the character makes more
sense than to claim that there is an internal focalization on the charac­
122 Focalization

ter. Focalization is a more fitting term when one analyses selections of

narrative information that are not designed to render the subjective ex­
perience of a character but to create other effects such as suspense,
mystery, puzzlement, etc. If focalization theory is to make any pro­
gress, an awareness of the differences between the two terms and of
their respective strengths and weaknesses is indispensable.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) The most pressing need is for an analysis of the specific conceptual
features of the focalization metaphor in comparison with related meta­
phors such as perspective, point of view, filter, etc. This needs to be
complemented by a thorough, non-dogmatic analysis of texts that
shows which of these terms is more appropriate to which kind of text.
(b) The question raised by Herman’s article remains to be investigated:
Is there such a thing as hypothetical focalization? In other words, can a
text suggest or imply a focalization that is not present in this text?

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Bal, Mieke (1977). Narratologie: Essais sur la signification narrative dans quatre ro­
mans modernes. Paris: Klincksieck.
– ([1985] 1997). Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: U of
Toronto P.
Chatman, Seymour ([1978] 1980). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction
and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
– (1990). Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca:
Cornell UP.
Edmiston, William F. (1991). Hindsight and Insight: Focalization in Four Eighteenth-
Century French Novels. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP.
Finney, Brian (1990). “Suture in Literary Analysis.” LIT: Literature Interpretation
Theory 2, 131–44.
Füger, Wilhelm (1993). “Stimmbrüche: Varianten und Spielräume narrativer Fokalisa­
tion.” H. Foltinek et al. (eds). Tales and their “telling difference”: Zur Theorie und
Geschichte der Narrativik. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Franz K. Stanzel.
Heidelberg: Winter, 43–59.
Genette, Gérard (1972). “Discours du récit.” G. G. Figures III. Paris: Seuil, 67–282.
– ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.
– ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Herman, David (1994). “Hypothetical Focalization.” Narrative, 230–53.
 Focalization 123

Herman, Luc & Bart Vervaeck (2004). “Focalization between Classical and Postclas­
sical Narratology.” J. Pier (ed). The Dynamics of Narrative Form: Studies in An­
lgo-American Narratology. Berlin: de Gruyter, 115–38.
Jahn, Manfred (1996). “Windows of Focalization: Deconstructing and Reconstructing a
Narratological Concept.” Style 30, 241–67.
Kablitz, Andreas (1988). “Erzählperspektive—Point of View—Focalisation: Überle­
gungen zu einem Konzept der Erzähltheorie.” Zeitschrift für französische Sprache
und Literatur 98, 237–55.
Margolin, Uri (2009). “Focalization: Where Do We Go from Here?” P. Hühn et al.
(eds). Point of View, Perspective, and Focalization. Modeling Mediation in Nar­
rative. Berlin: de Gruyter 48–58.
Nelles, William (1990). “Getting Focalization into Focus.” Poetics Today 11, 363–82.
Niederhoff, Burkhard (2001). “Fokalisation und Perspektive: Ein Plädoyer für fried­
liche Koexistenz.” Poetica 33, 1–21.
Nünning, Ansgar (1990). “‘Point of view’ oder ‘focalization’? Über einige Grundlagen
und Kategorien konkurrierender Modelle der erzählerischen Vermittlung.” Litera-
tur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 23, 249–68.
O’Neill, Patrick (1992). “Points of Origin: On Focalization in Narrative.” Canadian
Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée
19, 331–50.
Phelan, James (2001). “Why Narrators Can Be Focalizers—and Why It Matters.”
W. van Peer & S. Chatman (eds). New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective. Al­
bany: SUNY, 51–64.
Poe, Edgar Allan ([1839] 1956). Selected Writings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Prince, Gerald (2001). “A Point of View on Point of View or Refocusing Focalization.”
W. van Peer & S. Chatman (eds). New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective. Al­
bany: SUNY, 43–50.
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics.
London: Routledge.
Shen, Dan (2001). “Breaking Conventional Barriers: Transgressions of Modes of Fo­
calization.” W. van Peer & S. Chatman (eds). New Perspectives on Narrative Per­
spective. Albany: SUNY.

5.2 Further Reading

Rossholm, Göran, ed. (2004). Essays on Fiction and Perspective. Bern: Lang.
van Peer, Willie & Seymour Chatman, eds. (2001). New Perspectives on Narrative
Perspective. Albany: SUNY.
 Heteroglossia
Valerij Tjupa

1 Definition

This term results from a translation (Morson & Emerson 1990) of

Mixail Baxtin’s neologism raznorečie. According to Baxtin’s under­
standing of language use, a “social person,” who is also a “speaking
person,” operates not with language as an abstract regulatory norm, but
with a multitude of discourse practices that form in their totality a dy­
namic verbal culture belonging to the society concerned: “language is
something that is historically real, a process of heteroglot development,
a process teeming with future and former languages, with prim but mo-
ribund aristocrat-languages, with parvenu-languages and with countless
pretenders to the status of language which are all more or less success­
ful, depending on their degree of social scope and on the ideological
area in which they are employed” (Baxtin [1934/35] 1981: 356–57).

2 Explication

The category of heteroglossia has entered the scholarly apparatus of

narratology because the verbal presentation of the narration necessarily
possesses certain linguistic characteristics that create the effect of a
voice. Narration not only takes place from a particular standpoint in
time and space, but also inevitably has a certain stylistic color, a certain
tone of emotion and intention that can be described as “glossality.”
This is directed at the reader’s ability to hear (Tjupa 2006: 35–7).
Heteroglossia is a “dialogical,” agonal structure of verbal commu­
nication whose essence lies in the fact that “within the arena of almost
every utterance an intense interaction and struggle between one’s own
and another’s word is being waged” (Baxtin [1934/35] 1981: 354), a
struggle, that is, involving two or more codes between which links of
selection and connotation emerge. The former kind of link is based on
the use of different words to describe one and the same reality in dif­
ferent languages; the latter kind of link on the description of different
realities using the same words in different languages.
125 Heteroglossia

The phenomenon of heteroglossia is relevant to narratology in so far

as the narrative text is composed of two elements, the → narrator’s text
and the → characters’ text (Doležel 1960, 1973; Schmid 1973, 2005).
The second of these “heteroglot” texts that are “alien” to one another
presents itself as “utterance within utterance,” whereas the first is en­
countered as “utterance about utterance” (Vološinov [1929] 1973:
115), as a “framing context” that, “like the sculptor’s chisel, hews out
the rough outlines of someone else’s speech, and carves the image of
language out of the raw empirical data of speech life” (Baxtin
[1934/35] 1981: 358).
The text framed by narrative can be a diverse one (a bundle of het­
erogeneous texts produced by various characters) or a zero text (in the
case of a silent hero whose position within the event is not verbalized).
In the latter case, the character’s text is indeed pushed out of the
presentation of the narration, but it cannot be eliminated from the story
of narration of whose chain of events it is a part. As a silent dialogizing
background to the narrator’s speech, it can have a crucial influence on
that speech, on its stylistically relevant lexical features, its syntax, and
its tonality of emotion and intention (consider Dostoevskij’s “Gentle
Spirit”). And in the opposite case, that of a text stylized as skaz, in
which “the narrator’s speech has at one and the same time the function
of representing and of being represented” (Schmid 2003: 191), the role
of an actively silent dialogizing background is performed by the virtual
zero text of the → author, who would have told the story in question in
different words.
The effect of heteroglossia can be used in widely different ways by
the presentation of the narration, ranging from a “war of languages”
(Barthes 1984) to their tautology (zero heteroglossia). Between these
poles we find various ways of incorporating intratextual discourses into
the narrator’s text in the manner of quotation, as well as various forms
of “textual interference” (Schmid 2003: 177–222) or, as Baxtin
([1934/35] 1981: 304) puts it, “hybrid construction,” namely “an utter­
ance that […] contains mixed within it two utterances, two speech
manners, two styles, two ‘languages,’ two semantic and axiological be­
lief systems.”
The discourse related by the narrator can, for him, have the status of
an authoritative linguistic action. The turn to the authoritative text-be­
hind-the-text (the reading of the Gospel at the end of Tolstoj’s Resur­
rection, or the psalter in Bunin’s story “Exodus”) creates the effect of a
hierarchically constructed heteroglossia. The opposite of this kind of
hierarchy occurs when a narrator occupies a position of power where
he appears as “editor” (Uspenskij [1970] 1973: 43) of the characters’
 Heteroglossia 126

direct speech, transforming it as he sees it and thereby reducing the

overall level of heteroglossia in the text.
Following the norm established in the classical realism of the 19th
century, the direct speech of a character often serves to express that
character’s linguistic view of the world, which can differ to a greater or
lesser extent from the view of the world on which the narration is
based. In such cases, the lexical, grammatical, and intonation-related
syntactic features of the character’s text contrast with the narrator’s
text and combine to form a certain voice belonging to a different sub­
ject. The quoted voice does not have the same compositional standing
as the quoting voice: fragments of the characters’ speech are extracted
from the flow of the characters’ verbal activity by the narrator in a
manner similar to the way in which the narrator makes selections from
the flow of connected events belonging to (historically real or invent-
ed) reality. The axiological hierarchy need not be present here, though.
In certain special cases, texts-in-texts of this kind can be presented in a
different national language, e.g. French in Tolstoj’s War and Peace:
“When foreign and irregular speech is represented […], the author
stresses the distance between the speaking character and the describing
observer” (Uspenskij [1970] 1973: 51). Even in the context of a single
national language, however, the heteroglossia that results from the dis­
tance between two or more “socio-linguistic belief systems” (Baxtin
[1934/35] 1981: 356) can act as an effective means of organizing the
narrative world of a work. Thus, in Lermontov’s “The Fatalist” (a
chapter of the novel A Hero of our Times), the words of the Cossacks
on the one hand and of Maksim Maksimyč on the other are stylistically
brief, but clearly set apart from the speech of Pečorin (the narrator).
They are the voices of another life, the life of the “others.” The replies
by Vulič and the unnamed officers, on the other hand, cannot be stylis-
tically distinguished from the text of the narrator. In this case, zero het­
eroglossia points not to the anonymity of an act of narration that is in­
extricably bound to the world of transmission it shares with the charac­
ters (as in Homer’s Iliad), but to the potential power of the narrator
where discourse is concerned: for him, the characters (primarily Vulič,
Pečorin’s inner Doppelgänger) seem in some way to be actors in a
drama taking place inside his lonely mind. This is the zero heteroglos­
sia of Romantic discourse. By providing other characters with lexical,
grammatical, and intonation-related syntactic voices, however, Ler­
montov brings his prose beyond the boundary of the cultural paradigm
of romanticism.
Interference, or “contaminations” (Uspenskij [1970] 1983: 32),
between the narrator’s text and the characters’ text can take place
127 Heteroglossia

through forms of indirect speech and free indirect speech (→ speech

representation), for which Schmid (2003: 216–39, 2005: 177–222) sug­
gests a detailed classification. The leading role in a textual interference
with many forms is performed by the narrator’s text, which can be
characterized with reference to its intention regarding the characters’
text (its language, its style, its horizon of values). Using Baxtin’s terms,
we can distinguish here between (a) “assimilation,” (b) “demarcation”
(razmeževanie), and (c) “dialogized interillumination” as fundamental
intentions. In the case of (a), we are concerned with the incomplete ab­
sorption of the characters’ text by the narrator’s text: a lexical, gram­
matical, or syntactic remnant of a foreign discourse can be identified in
the narrator’s speech. In the case of (b), there is an axiological diver­
gence, a confrontation of horizons in which every foreign word is care­
fully preserved but given an undertone of caricature in the narrator’s
speech. In the case of (c), we would speak of a convergence of horizons
that have equal axiological status and contain “truths” of equal value
complementing each another.
The types of textual interference just described can be mutually in­
terrelated and intertwined in a complex manner. In Dostoevskij’s story
“Mr Prokharčin,” for example, this leads to mental conflict, intensified
to extremes, between the eponymous hero, characterized by his ego­
centric, self-directed speech, and his surroundings, the brotherhood of
the officials who formulate their views of life in a flowery style. In the
process, the narrator (a biographer who represents the story with a side­
ways glance at the lovers of a noble style) manipulates all three pos­
sible intentions of heteroglossia with virtuosity in his efforts to estab­
lish a balance between the opposing positions.
More recent prose (since Čechov) has seen the possibility of having
mutually complementary narrative entities emerge and establish them­
selves; this makes the convergence of narrator’s text and characters’
text an all-encompassing principle of narration. Here, without losing its
crucial compositional function, the “voice of the narrator” draws near
to the “axiological and linguistic horizon of the hero” (Schmid 2003:
233); the narrator, declining to exercise his power, does not give him­
self the last word, leaving no more than meaningful pointers behind in­
stead (consider Solženicyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovič).
This device, which bears a superficial resemblance to skaz but is really
the opposite of skaz styling, has been given the name “free indirect au­
thorial narration” (nesobstvenno-avtorskoe povestvovanie; Koževni-
kova 1994). This choice of term, though, does not seem entirely appro­
priate: the narrative text, as the result of the aesthetic verbal activity of
“indirect speaking” (Baxtin [1959/60] 1996: 314, 1986: 110), is never
 Heteroglossia 128

directly correlated with the author; there are always mediating entities,
and so the narrative text is always an indirect authorial utterance.
For the most part, the phenomenon of heteroglossia in narrative dis­
course is treated as an aspect of the more general problem of point of
view (Uspenskij 1970); it is described in such cases as “phraseological
perspective” (Korman 1975) or “linguistic” perspective (Schmid 2003,
2005). Assuming that the terms are equivalent in this way, though, can
give cause for objection. The discursive practice to which a text (or the
quoted words of a text) belongs does not end with perspective: behind
the discourse there lies a certain axiological and cultural, ideological
and linguistic, socio-psychological horizon attached to those who are
speaking/writing. This horizon contains all the potential objects, found
by the mind in question, of a subjective stance concerning them; it is a
potential field of reference for the discourse. Perspective, on the other
hand, is always actual: it represents a “single (unique, ‘immediate’) re­
lationship between subject and object” (Korman [1975] 2006: 184), it
activates a certain segment of the horizon and positions the subject it­
self within that horizon. As a narratological category, it may well be
sufficient to define narrative perspective as a “position of the ‘observ-
er’ (the narrator, the character) in the represented world,” as a position
that “expresses the author’s evaluative stance toward this subject and
its mental horizon” (Tamarčenko 2004: 221). Even in the text, the hori­
zon of a narrating entity itself has only a potential existence: it is rep­
resented by the stylistic “symptoms” of its boundaries which are acti-
vated by the contrapuntal and/or polyphonic heteroglossia of the multi-
voiced text. In Lermontov’s novel, for example, the fatalist Vulič is
provided with an ideological and chronotopic perspective, but does not
have a voice of his own, since his axiological horizon is, as that of a
special being, potentially equivalent to the horizon of Pečorin the nar­
rator himself, another special being who remains a doubting officer.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Baxtin’s pupil and successor Vološinov (1926, 1929) must be credited

with providing the first fundamental formulation of the problem of het­
eroglossia. In particular, he set up the term “speech interference”
(Vološinov [1929] 1973: 148). In Russian literary studies, the terms
“voice” and “socio-linguistic horizon” have become established in the
wake of Baxtin’s work on Dostoevskij (1929, 1963) and of his studies
on the genre of the novel (Baxtin 1934/35). Baxtin conceives of voice
in two dimensions at once: as one of the products of the general lan­
guage-producing “language-intention” of the speaker and as a special
129 Heteroglossia

stylistically realized “language” of a speaker, a language with its own

picture of the world (“its own world inextricably bound up with the
parodied language” [1934/35] 1981: 364).
The term “voice” was introduced to Western literary studies by
Lubbock ([1921] 1957: 68), who believes that the author can make use
of both his own language and the languages (of the minds) of his char­
acters. Western scholarship became acquainted with Baxtin’s ideas
about heteroglossia via the work of Kristeva (1966, 1970), whose writ­
ings have enjoyed a wide and favorable international reception. In en­
thusiastically adapting Baxtin’s theory to the emerging ideology of
postmodernism, however, this French scholar distorted his ideas signi­
ficantly: she replaced Baxtin’s “plentitude of speech” with the concept
of intertextuality; she speaks of an “insight first introduced into literary
theory by Baxtin: any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any
text is the absorption and transformation of another. The notion of in­
tertextuality replaces that of intersubjectivity, and poetic language is
read as at least double” (Kristeva [1966] 1980: 66; italics in original).
In reality, Baxtin saw intersubjectivity as one of the fundamental con­
cepts of his ontological and gnoseological deliberations, and the text
was never conceived of as an anonymous “mosaic” (in the sense of
Kristeva’s thesis that “any text is constructed as a mosaic of quota­
tions”). For Baxtin, the text was a compositionally unitary utterance of
a particular (in literature fictive) subject, a subject within which there
are foreign words and entire foreign intratextual discourses that can
enter into various relationships with the discourse surrounding them:
subordinated and subordinating relationships, relationships of discus­
sion as equals, and relationships of solidarity.
Somewhat later, without turning to Baxtin for support, Barthes
(1984) considered the phenomenon of heteroglossia in his essays “The
Division of Languages” and “The War of Languages.” Barthes, though,
treated it as a negative phenomenon, one that must be overcome by
“progressive” écriture (Barthes [1984] 1986: 124). In his Encyclopedia
entry “Texte,” Barthes (1973)—who similarly to Baxtin conceives of
language as a multiplicity of voices surrounding the text on all sides—
treats the text as no more than a “new fabric woven out of old quota­
tions.” This is the path that led to deconstruction, which replaces het­
eroglossia with intertextuality and thereby effectively suspends the nar­
ratological problem of narrating as a positioning of the narrator in dis­
course.
Among the works that have restored an appropriate understanding
of Baxtin’s “plentitude of speech,” special mention must be made of a
book by the creators of the English term “heteroglossia” (Morson &
 Heteroglossia 130

Emerson 1990). This study has had a visible influence on contempo-

rary narratology, despite the authors’ critical stance toward the narrato­
logical approach to the study of literature. Close reading and an appro­
priate development of the possibilities contained in Baxtin’s typology
of the prose word are typical of Schmid’s narratology (2005). In Russi­
an-language scholarship, Baxtin’s narratological ideas, particularly that
of heteroglossia, have been developed by Tamarčenko (2004) and
Tjupa (2006), as well as in Schmid’s book (2003, 2005).

4 Topics for Further Investigation

An important starting point for narratological studies is the need to dis­

tinguish between the categories of perspectivization (the system of
points of view) and glossality (the system of voices), which are of
equal status and complement each other. Genette ([1972] 1980: 186)
had already begun making this distinction when he separated the ques­
tion “who sees?” from that of “who speaks?”

(Translated by Alastair Matthews)

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Barthes, Roland (1973). “Texte.” Encyclopædia universalis. Paris: Seuil, vol. 15,
1013–17.
– ([1984] 1986). The Rustle of Language. Oxford: Blackwell.
Baxtin, Mixail (1929). “Problemy tvorčestva Dostoevskogo.” Sobr. soč. v 7 tt., vol. 2.
Moskva: Russkie slovari, 5–175.
– (Bakhtin, Mikhail) ([1934/35] 1981). “Discourse in the novel.” M. M. The Dialo­
gic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: U of Texas P, 259–422.
– ([1959/60] 1996). “Problema teksta.” Sobr. soč. V 7 tt.. Moskva: Russkie slovari,
vol. 5, 306–26.
– (Bakhtin, Mikhail) ([1963] 1984). M. M. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Min­
neapolis: U of Minnesota P.
– (1986). Speech Genres and Other late Essays. Austin: U of Texas P.
Doležel, Lubomír (1960). O stylu moderní ceské prózy. Vystavba textu. Praha: Nakl.
Československé Akad. Věd.
– (1973). Narrative Modes in Czech Literature. Toronto: U of Toronto P.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
Korman, Boris O. ([1975] 2006). “Zametki o točke zrenija.” Teorija literatury. Iževsk:
Izd. Udmurtskogo un-teta, 180–85.
131 Heteroglossia

Koževnikova, Natal’ja A. (1994). Tipy povestvovanija v russkoj literature XIX–XX vv.

Moskva: Nauka.
Kristeva, Julia ([1966] 1980). “Word, Dialogue and Novel.” J. K. Desire in Language:
A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. New York: Columbia UP, 64–91.
– (1970). Le texte du roman. Approche sémiologique d’une structure discursive
transformationelle. La Haye: Mouton.
Lubbock, Percy ([1921] 1957). The Craft of Fiction. London: Cape.
Morson, Gary Saul & Caryl Emerson (1990). Mikhail Bakhtin. Creation of a Prosaics.
Stanford: Stanford UP.
Schmid, Wolf ([1973] 1986). Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Am-
sterdam: Grüner.
– (2003). Narratologija. Мoskva: Jazyki slavjanskoj literatury.
– (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Tamarčenko, Natan D. (2004). “‘Sobytie rasskazyvanija’: struktura teksta i ponjatija
narratologii.” N. D. T. et al. (eds). Teorija literatury, t. 1. Moskva: Academia, 205–
42.
Тjupa, Valerij I. (2006). Analiz khudožestvennogo teksta. Moskva: Academia.
Uspenskij, Boris A. ([1970] 1973). A Poetics of Composition. Berkeley: U of Califor­
nia P.
Vološinov, Valentin N. ([1926] 1995). “Slovo v žizni i slovo v poėzii.” Filosofija i so­
ciologija gumanitarnykh nauk. S-Peterburg: Asta-Press, 59–87.
– (Voloshinov) ([1929] 1973). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. New York:
Seminar P.

5.2 Further Reading

Padučeva, Elena V. (1996). “Semantika narrativa.” Semantičeskie issledovanija. Мosk­
va: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury, 193–418.
Schmid, Wolf (1998). Proza kak poėzija. S-Peterburg: Inapress.
Todorov, Tzvetan ([1981] 1984). Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogic Principle. Minneapol­
is: U of Minnesota P.
van den Heuvel, Pierre (1985). Parole, mot, silence: Pour une poétique de l’énonci­
ation. Paris: Corti.
Zbinden, K. (1999). “Traducing Bakhtin and Missing Heteroglossia.” Dialogism: An
International Journal of Bakhtin Studies 2, 41–59.
 Identity and Narration
Michael Bamberg

1 Definition

Identity designates the attempt to differentiate and integrate a sense of

self along different social and personal dimensions such as gender, age,
race, occupation, gangs, socio-economic status, ethnicity, class, nation
states, or regional territory.
Any claim of identity faces three dilemmas: (a) sameness of a sense
of self over time in the face of constant change; (b) uniqueness of the
individual vis-à-vis others faced with being the same as everyone else;
and (c) the construction of agency as constituted by self (with a self-to-
world direction of fit) and world (with a world-to-self direction of fit).
Claims to identity begin with the continuity/change dilemma and from
there venture into issues of uniqueness and agency; self and sense of
self begin by constructing agency and differentiating self from others
and then go on to navigate the waters of continuity and change.
Engaging in any activity requires acts of self-identification by rely­
ing on repertoires that identify and contextualize speakers/writers along
varying socio-cultural categories, often compared to mental or linguis-
tic representations (→ schemata) that are less fixed depending on con­
text and function. Narrating, a speech activity that involves ordering
characters in space and time, is a privileged genre for identity construc­
tion because it requires situating characters in time and space through
gesture, posture, facial cues, and gaze in coordination with speech. In
addition, narrating, whether in the form of → fictional or factual narra­
tion, tends toward “human life”—something more than what is report­
able or tellable (→ tellability), something that is life- and live-worthy
(Taylor 1989). Thus, narrating enables speakers/writers to disassociate
the speaking/writing self from the act of speaking, to take a reflective
position vis-à-vis self as → character.
133 Identity and Narration

2 Explication

Taking a reflective position on self as character has been elaborated in

the narratological differentiation between → author, → narrator, and
character. The reflective process takes place in the present but refers to
past or fictitious time-space, making past (or imagined) events relevant
for the act of telling, pointing toward the meaningfulness of relation­
ships and worthwhile lives, and exemplifying “the human good” (Ari-
stotle 1996: 1461a). It is against this backdrop that narrating in recent
decades has established itself as a privileged site for identity analysis—
a new territory for inquiry (cf. Ricœur 1990; Strawson 2004).
Designing characters in fictitious timespace has the potential of
opening up territory for exploring identity, reaching beyond traditional
boundaries, and testing out novel identities. Narratives rooted in factual
past-time events, by contrast, are dominated by an opposite orientation.
The delineation of what happened, whose agency was involved, and the
potential transformation of characters from one state to another serve to
demarcate the identity of the reflective self under investigation. If past-
time narration is triggered by the question “Who am I?,” having the
narrator’s quest for identity or sense of self as its goal, the leeway for
ambiguity, transgression of boundaries, or exploration of novel identi-
ties is more restricted: the goal is rather to condense and unite, to re­
solve ambiguity, and to deliver answers that lay further inquiry into
past and identity to rest.
However, the reduction of identity to the depiction of characters and
their development in a story leaves out the communicative space within
which identities are negotiated in interaction with others. Limiting nar­
ratives to what they are about restricts identity to the referential or cog­
nitive level of speech activities and disregards real life, where identities
are under construction, formed, performed, and change over time. It is
within the space of everyday talk in interaction with others that narra­
tion plays its constitutive role in the formation and navigation of iden­
tities as part of everyday practices and that the potential for orientation
toward human values takes form. When considering the emergence of
identity, the narrating subject must be regarded: (a) as neither locked
into stability nor drifting through constant change, but rather as some­
thing that is multiple, contradictory, and distributed over time and
place, held together contextually and locally; (b) in terms of member­
ship positions vis-à-vis others that help to trace the narrator’s identity
within the context of social relationships, groups, and institutions; and
(c) as the active and agentive locus of control, though simultaneously
attributing agency to outside forces that are situated in a broader socio-
 Identity and Narration 134

historical context. Along these lines, identity is not confined by just

one societal discourse but open to change. Identity is able to transform
itself and adapt to the challenges of growing cultural multiplicities in
increasingly globalizing environments.
Based on the assumption that narration at its origin was a verbal act
performed locally in interactional contexts and from there evolved to­
ward other, differently constituted and contextualized media (writing,
electronic, and digital media, etc.; cf. Ryan 2006), the function of nar­
ration in identity formation processes cannot be reduced to the verbal
means used or to the messages conveyed. Rather, the local interactional
environments in which narrative units emerge form the foundation for
inquiry into identity formation and the sense of self. While transforma­
tions from oral to written forms of expression have been studied (e.g.
Ong 1982) and text-critical analysis has been undertaken from the per­
spective of the hermeneutic circle, work with transcripts from audio re­
cordings is relatively new. More recent are concerted efforts to record
narratives audio-visually and to analyze the way they emerge in inter­
action, including the sophisticated ways in which they are performed.
Audio-visual material, of course, can be more fully (micro-analytically)
scrutinized in terms of the contextualized coordination of narrative
form, content, and performance features (→ performativity) in the ser­
vice of identity formation processes.
Recently, this type of micro-analytic analysis has been applied to
identity as achieved in narration under the heading of “positioning an-
alysis” (Bamberg 1997, 2003; Bamberg & Georgakopoulou 2008) in
order to focus more effectively on the situated nature of identification
processes that emerge from the three identity dilemmas mentioned
above. Navigating and connecting temporal continuity and discontinu­
ity, self and other differentiation, and the direction of fit between per­
son and world, take place in the small stories told on everyday occa­
sions in which tellers affirm a sense of who they are. It is precisely this
sense of self and identity grounded in sequential, moment-by-moment
interactive engagements, largely undertheorized and often dismissed in
traditional identity inquiry, that operates on verbal texts or cognitive
representations (→ cognitive narratology).

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Self and identity are traditionally bound up with what is taken to be the
essence of the individual person which continues over time and space
in phylo- as well as in socio- and onto-genetic terms. However, this
overlooks how conceptions of self and identity have evolved histori-
135 Identity and Narration

cally and culturally and also how each individual’s personal ontogene-
sis undergoes continuous change. In addition, essentialist views of self
and identity camouflage the links between these concepts and their
counterparts in narration and narrative practices. Section 3.1 will fur­
ther explore the connection between self and identity dilemmas (b) and
(c), while section 3.2 will be devoted to identity and dilemma (a).

3.1 Self and Narration

Although self, like “I” and “me,” are highly specific morphological
items of the English lexicon, they are commonly assumed to refer uni­
versally to corresponding concepts in other languages—an assumption
that has been contested, however. A closer look reveals that these con­
cepts most often have a history of their own that varies in illuminating
ways (cf. Heelas & Lock eds. 1981; Triandis 1989). Modern notions of
self and individuality (cf. Elias 1987; Gergen 1991) are taken to be
closely intertwined with the emergence of local communities, nation
states, new forms of knowledge and reflection (“rationalization”), feel­
ing, and perception—all in conjunction with increasing interiorization
and psychologization.
In this process of becoming individualized, self-narration (autobio­
graphy, life-writing, autofiction) springs to the fore as the basic prac­
tice-ground for marking the self off from “I” as speaker/agent and “me”
as character/actor (cf. the narratological distinctions between “narra-
ting self” and “narrated self” and between narrator and protagonist).
Acts of thematizing and displacing the self as character in past time
and space become the basis for other self-related actions such as self-
disclosure, self-reflection and self-criticism, potentially leading to self-
control, self-constraint, and self-discipline. What further comes to light
in this process is an increasing differentiation between (and integration
of) “I” and “me” (James 1890), and simultaneously between “I-we-us”
and “them-other” (Elias 1987). Thus, self, apparently, is the product of
an “I” that manages three processes of differentiation and integration:
(a) it can posit a “me” (as distinct from “I”); (b) it can posit and bal­
ance this “I-me” distinction with “we”; and (c) it can differentiate this
“we” as “us” from “them” as “other.” This process of differentiation
must be taken into account when talking about “self” as different from
“other” and viewing self “in relation to self” (as in self-reflection and
self-control). Self, as differentiated from other by developing the abil­
ity to account for itself (as agent or as undergoer), to self-reflect, and to
self-augment, can now begin to look for something like temporal con­
 Identity and Narration 136

tinuity, unity, and coherence, i.e. identity across a life (cf. Ricœur
1990).

3.2 Identity and Narration: Biography and Life-Writing

The ability to conceive of life as an integrated narrative forms the

cornerstone for what Erikson (1950) called “ego identity.” The under­
lying assumption here is that life begins to co-jell into building blocks
that, when placed in the right order, cohere: important moments tie into
important events, events into episodes, and episodes into a life story.
It is this analogy between life and story—or better: the metaphoric
process of seeing life as storied (in narratological terms: story and dis­
course) that has given substantive fuel to the narrative turn. The
strength of how scholars (and laypeople) in the past have made use of
this connection, though, varies: on the one hand, there is a relatively
loose connection according to which we tell stories of lives by using
particular narrative formats. Lives can be told as following an epic
script or as if consisting of unconnected patches. Most often, though,
lives are told by depicting characters and how they develop. Character,
particularly in modern times, rests on an internal and an external form
of organization. The former is typically a complex interiority, a set of
traits organizing underlying actions and the course of events as out­
comes of motives that spring from this interiority. The latter, an exter-
nal condition of character development, takes plot as the overarching
principle that lends order to human action in response to the threat of a
discontinuous and seemingly meaningless life by a set of possible con­
tinuities (often referred to by cognitive narratologists as “schemata” or
“scripts”; cf. Herman 2002: chap. 3). This interplay of human (and hu­
mane) interiority and culturally available models of continuity (plots)
gives narrative a powerful role in the process of seeing life as narrative.
It also should be noted that the arrangement of interiority as governed
by the availability of plots gives answers—at least to a degree—to the
“direction-of-fit” or “agency” identity dilemma. With narration thus
defined, life transcends the animalistic and unruly body so that narra­
tion gains the power to organize “human temporality” (Punday 2003;
see also Ricœur 1985): the answer to non-human, a-temporal, and dis­
continuous chaos.
Another, and probably stronger reason for employing the narrative
metaphor for life starts with the assumption of a “narrative mode of
thinking.” Bruner (1986) and Polkinghorne (1988) similarly vie for the
argument that there is a particular cognitive mode of making sense of
the (social) world which is organized “narratively” (an important theme
137 Identity and Narration

in cognitive psychology; cf. Herman 2002, 2009). Freeman’s (1993)

and Mishler’s (1986) work with autobiographical memories focuses
particularly on the interrelationship between memory, autobiographical
memory, and narrative. Mishler early on propagated the use of autobio­
graphic narrative interview data in the form of a “contextual approach”
which is not limited to recording data about human experience or to
looking “behind” the author, but that focuses on interaction and rela­
tionships.
McAdams (1985), building on narrative theorists such as Bruner,
Polkinghorne, and Sarbin, has turned the assumption of selves plotting
themselves in and across time into a life-story model of identity. His
model clearly states that life stories are more than recapitulations of
past events and episodes, that they have a defining character: “our nar­
rative identities are the stories we live by” (McAdams et al. 2006: 4).
McAdams’ efforts to connect the study of lives to life stories is par­
alleled in a wider turn to biographic methods in the social sciences,
leading to Lieblich & Josselson’s eleven-volume series titled The Nar­
rative Study of Lives.
The origins of these efforts stretch across a wide range of disci-
plines including psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Goodson &
Sikes (2001: 129) date the origins of life history methods in the form of
autobiographies back to the beginning of the 20th century. Since then,
life history methods have spread from the study of attitudes in social
psychology to community studies in sociology, particularly within the
Chicago School, and forty years later back into psychology. Retro­
spectively, it can be argued that the early studies by the members of the
Chicago School, and in particular “oral history” popularized by the
works of Studs Terkel, lacked the analytic component of modern day
narrative inquiry. However, without these origins and the works of Ber­
taux (1981) and Plummer (1983), the foundation of the Research Com­
mittee on Biography and Society (within the International Sociological
Association) would have been unthinkable. The methodological prin­
ciples were laid out in the early work by Schütze (1977) and later
picked up and refined in current narrative interview approaches by
Fischer-Rosenthal & Rosenthal (1997).
Thanks to these developments, it is clearer how the relatively mas-
sive turn in the social sciences toward biography and life writing was
able to gain ground as a new approach to identity research. It emerged
as a concerted attempt to wed self-differentiation (self that can reflect
upon itself) and narration (plotting a sense of characterhood across
time)—in narratological terms: “narrating self” and “narrated self”—
into an answer that addresses the three dilemmas of identity laid out
 Identity and Narration 138

earlier. A teller accounts for how s/he (a) has emerged (as character)
over time, (b) as different from others (but same), and simultaneously
(c) how s/he views her-/himself as a (responsible) agent. Managing
these three dilemmas in concert is taken to establish what is essential to
identity. Consequently, life-writing and biography, preferably as auto­
biography or life story, become privileged arenas for identity research.

3.3 Problems of Linking Life, Narration, and Identity

The link between life and narration and the exploration of lives (in­
cluding selves and identity) through the exploration of narratives have
traditions going back to Freud (1900), Allport (1937), and Murray
(1938). However, this close connection between life and narrative is
said to require a particular retrospectiveness that values “life as reflect-
ed” and discredits “life as lived.” Sartwell (2000) has questioned (a)
whether life really has the purpose and meaningfulness that narrative
theorists metaphorically attempt to attribute to it and (b) whether nar­
ratives themselves have the kind of → coherence and telic quality that
narrative theorists often assume. The problem Sartwell sees in this kind
of approach is that the lived moment, the way it is “sensed” and experi­
enced, is said to gain its life-worthy quality only in light of its sur­
rounding moments. Rather than empowering the subject with meaning
in life, Sartwell argues, narrative, conceived this way, drains and
blocks him or her from finding pleasure and joy in the here-and-now.
The subject is overpowered by narrative as a normalizing machine.
Another difficulty resulting from the close linkage between life,
narration, and identity consists in what Lejeune (1975) termed “the
autobiographical pact.” According to Lejeune, what counts as autobio­
graphy is somewhat blurry, since it is based on a “pact” between author
and reader that is not directly traceable down into the textual qualities.
Thus, while a life story can employ the first-person pronoun to feign
the identity of author, narrator, and character, use of the third-person
pronoun may serve to camouflage this identity (cf. narrative unreliabili-
ty). Autobiographical fiction thrives on the blurring of these bound­
aries. Of interest here are “the perennial theoretical questions of au­
thenticity and reference” (Porter 2008: 25) leading up to the larger is­
sue of the connection between referentiality and narration (cf.
Genette’s 1990 distinction between fictional narrative and factual nar­
rative).
While most research on biography has been quite aware of the sit-
uated and locally occasioned nature of people’s accounts (often in in­
stitutional settings) and the problems this poses for claims with regard
139 Identity and Narration

to the speaker/narrator’s sense of self or identity, a number of research­

ers have launched a large-scale critique of the biographic turn as redu­
cing language to its referential and ideational functions and thereby
overextending (and simplifying) narration as the root metaphor for the
person, (sense of) self, and identity. At the core of these voices is the
call for a much “needed antidote to the longstanding tradition of ‘big
stories’ which, be they in the form of life stories or of stories of land­
mark events, have monopolized the inquiry into tellers’ representations
of past events and themselves in light of these events” (Georgako­
poulou 2007: 147; cf. Strawson 2004).

3.4 Narration as Identity Formation in Narrative Practice

Attempts to transport interactional context and performance-oriented

aspects of narration into the analysis of identities reach back to Burke
(1945) and Goffman (1959) and have been reiterated repeatedly by oth­
ers in the field of biography research (e.g. Mishler 1986; Riessman
2008). More recent attempts to integrate this acknowledgment into em­
pirical analysis center around a number of key positions. First is the
proposal to resituate narration as performative moves (cf. Langellier &
Peterson 2004), calling for the analysis of embodied practices and ma­
terial conditions of narrative productions. Similarly, Gubrium & Hol­
stein (2008) argue for a narrative ethnography—one that is able to an-
alyze the complex interplay between “experience, storying practices,
descriptive resources, purposes at hand, audiences, and the environ­
ments that condition storytelling” (250).
Georgakopoulou (2006, 2007) and Bamberg (1997, 2003; Bamberg
& Georgakopoulou 2008) have tried to develop an alternative approach
to big story narrative research that takes “narratives-in-interaction,” i.e.
the way stories surface in everyday conversation (small stories), as the
locus where identities are continuously practiced and tested out. This
approach allows for exploring self at the level of the talked-about and
at the level of tellership in the here-and-now of a storytelling situation.
Both of these levels feed into the larger project at work in the global
situatedness within which selves are already positioned, i.e. with more
or less implicit and indirect referencing and orientation to social posi­
tions and discourses above and beyond the here-and-now.
Placing emphasis on small stories allows for the study of how
people as agentive actors position themselves—and in doing so become
positioned. This model of positioning affords the possibility of viewing
identity constructions as two-fold: analyzing the way the referential
world is constructed, with characters (self and others) emerging in time
 Identity and Narration 140

and space as protagonists and antagonists. Simultaneously, it is pos­

sible to show how the referential world (what the story is about) is con­
structed as a function of interactive engagement, i.e. the way the refer­
ential world is put together points to how tellers “want to be under­
stood,” how they index their sense of self. Consequently, it is the action
orientation of the participants in small story events that forms the basic
point of departure for this functionalist-informed approach to narration
and, to a lesser degree, what is represented or reflected upon in the
stories told. This seems to be what makes this type of work with small
stories crucially different from work with big stories: the aim is to anal-
yze how people use small stories in their interactive engagements to
construct a sense of who they are, while big story research analyzes the
stories as representations of world and identities within them.
Behind this way of approaching and working with stories is an ac­
tion orientation that urges the analyst to look at constructions of self
and identity as necessarily dialogical and relational, fashioned and re­
fashioned in local interactive practices (cf. Antaki & Widdicombe eds.
1998) (→ dialogism). At the same time, it recognizes that small story
participants generally attune their stories to various local, interpersonal
purposes, sequentially gauging themselves to prior and upcoming talk,
continuously challenging and confirming each others’ positions. It is in
and through this type of relational activity that representations in the
form of content, i.e. what the talk is intended to be about, are brought
off and come into existence. By contrast, story analyses that remain
fixated on the represented contents of the story in order to conclude
from there how the teller reflects on him-/herself miss out on the very
interactive and relational constructedness of content and reflection.
Furthermore, this kind of analysis aims at scrutinizing the inconsisten­
cies, ambiguities, contradictions, moments of trouble and tension, and
the tellers’ constant navigation and finessing between different ver­
sions of selfhood and identity in local interactional contexts. However
well-established the line of identities-in-interaction may be in the con­
text of the analysis of conversational data, this emphasis still contrasts
with the longstanding privileging of coherence by traditional ap­
proaches to narrative theory. Through the scrutiny of small stories in a
variety of sites and contexts, the aim becomes to legitimize the man­
agement of different and often competing and contradictory positions
as the mainstay of identity through narrative. A final aim is to advance
a project of documenting identity as a process of constant change that,
when practiced over and over again, has the potential to result in a
sense of constancy and sameness, i.e. big stories that can be elicited un­
der certain conditions.
141 Identity and Narration

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) Whether narratives actually constitute a privileged territory for in­

quiry into life and identity requires further theoretical and empirical in­
quiry. Usually, this question is decided on the basis of a pre-theoretical,
epistemological (if not ontological) stance. But the question itself may
be open to different interpretations. (b) The use of narrative methods in
the exploration of hybrid or hyphenated identities constitutes an inter­
esting new development in recent trends of social science research in a
turn to questions of citizenship, cultural exclusion, imagined com­
munities, symbolic representations of belonging, and even general pro­
cesses of globalization. (c) Illness and traumatic experiences are typi-
cally viewed as disruptions of continuity and coherence, posing chal­
lenges to the formation of a sense of self and (biographic) identity as
well as to our sense of agency. Recent discussions about the plot-types
employed in illness narratives and how patients’ narrative accounts can
be made use of more productively in narrative medicine bring up inter­
esting questions with regard to the construction of paths and trajecto-
ries of experiences, their inherent action potential, and the relationship
to mapping out possible reconstructions from being re-active to becom­
ing pro-active in the construction of patients’ “healing dramas.” (d)
The increasing diversification into different narrative methods and ap­
proaches (content/thematic vs. structural/formal methods, now joined
by discursive/performative approaches) has led to the question whether
there is still a common core to the original “narrative approach” as an
alternative to the study of subjectivity, self, and identity—the way, in
retrospect, it seemed to have begun about thirty-five years ago.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Allport, Gordon W. (1937). Personality: A Psychological Interpretation. New York:
Holt.
Antaki, Charles & Sue Widdicombe, eds. (1998). Identities in Talk. London: Sage.
Aristotle (1996). Poetics. Tr. M. Heath. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics.
Bamberg, Michael (1997). “Positioning between Structure and Performance.” Journal
of Narrative and Life History 7, 335–42.
– (2003). “Positioning with Davie Hogan: Stories, Tellings, and Identities.” C. Daiute
& C. Lightfoot (eds). Narrative Analysis: Studying the Development of Individuals
in Society. London: Sage, 135–57.
– & Alexandra Georgakopoulou (2008). “Small Stories as a New Perspective in Nar­
rative and Identity Analysis.” Text & Talk 28, 377–96.
 Identity and Narration 142

Bertaux, Daniel (1981). Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the So­
cial Sciences. London: Sage.
Bruner, Jerome (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Burke, Kenneth (1945). A Grammar of Motives. New York: Prentice-Hall.
Elias, Norbert ([1987] 1991). The Society of Individuals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Erikson, Erik H. ([1950] 1963). Childhood and Society. New York: Norton.
Fisher-Rosenthal, Wolfram & Gabriele Rosenthal (1997). “Narrationsanalyse biogra-
phischer Selbstrepräsentation.” R. Hitzler & A. Horner (eds). Sozialwissenschaft­
liche Hermeneutik. Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 133–64.
Freeman, Mark P. (1993). Rewriting the Self. History, Memory, Narrative. London:
Routledge.
Freud, Sigmund ([1900] 1913). The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Macmillan.
Genette, Gérard (1990). “Fictional Narrative, Factual Narrative.” Poetics Today 11,
755–74.
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra (2006). “The Other Side of the Story: Towards a Narrative
Analysis of Narratives-in-Interaction.” Discourse Studies 8, 265–87.
– (2007). Small Stories, Interaction and Identities. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Gergen, Kenneth (1991). The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary
Life. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, Erving (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City:
Doubleday.
Goodson, Ivor F. & Pat Sikes (2001). Life History Research in Educational Settings:
Learning from Lives. Buckingham: Open UP.
Gubrium, Jaber F. & James A. Holstein (2008). “Narrative Ethnography.” S. B. Hesse-
Biber & P. Leavy (eds). Handbook of Emergent Methods. New York: Guildford P,
241–64.
Heelas, Paul & Andrew Lock, eds. (1981). Indigenous Psychologies: The Anthropol-
ogy of the Self. London: Academic P.
Herman, David (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
– (2009). Basic Elements of Narrative. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
James, William ([1890] 1900). Principles of Psychology. Vol. I. New York: Holt & Co.
Langellier, Kristin M. & Eric E. Peterson (2004). Storytelling in Daily Life: Perform­
ing Narrative. Philadelphia: Temple UP.
Lejeune, Philippe ([1975] 1989). On Autobiography. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
McAdams, Dan P. (1985). Power, Intimacy, and the Life Story: Personological Inqui-
ries into Identity. New York: Guildford P.
– et al. (2006). “Introduction.” D. P. McA. et al. (eds). Identity and Story. Washing­
ton: American Psychological Association, 1–11.
Mishler, Elliot G. (1986). Research Interviewing. Context and Narrative. Cambridge:
Harvard UP.
Murray, Henry A. (1938). Explorations in Personality. New York: Oxford UP.
Ong, Walter (1982). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London:
Methuen.
Plummer, Kenneth (1983). Documents of Life. London: Allen & Unwin.
143 Identity and Narration

Polkinghorne, Donald (1988). Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. Albany:
State U of New York P.
Porter, Roger J. (2008). “Introduction to World Narrative.” M. Fuchs & C. Howes
(eds). Teaching Life Writing Texts. New York: Modern Language Association of
America, 23–31.
Punday, Daniel (2003). Narrative Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Narratology. New
York: Palgrave.
Ricœur, Paul ([1985] 1988). Time and Narrative. Vol. 3. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
– ([1990] 1992). Oneself as Another. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
Riessman, Catherine Kohler (2008). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Thou­
sand Oaks: Sage.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (2006). “Narrative, Media, and Modes.” M.-L. R. Avatars of Story.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 3–30.
Sartwell, Crispin (2000). End of Story. Toward an Annihilation of Language and His­
tory. Albany: State U of New York P.
Schütze, Fritz (1977). Die Technik des narrativen Interviews in Interaktionsfeldstudien
dargestellt an einem Projekt zur Erforschiung von kommunikativen Machtstruktu­
ren. Universität Bielefeld: Department of Sociology.
Strawson, Galen (2004). “Against Narrativity.” Ratio n.s. 17, 428–52.
Taylor, Charles (1989). Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cam­
bridge: Harvard UP.
Triandis, Harry Ch. (1989). “The Self and Social Behavior in Differing Contexts.” Psy­
chological Review 96, 506–20.

5.2 Further Reading

Bamberg, Michael, ed. (2007). Narrative—State of the Art. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
– et al. eds. (2007). Selves and Identities in Narrative and Discourse. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.
Brockmeier, Jens & Donal Carbaugh, eds. (2001). Narrative and Identity: Studies in
Autobiography, Self and Culture. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
de Fina, Anna, et al. eds. (2006). Discourse and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Holstein, James A. & Jaber F. Gubrium (2000). The Self We Live By: Narrative Identity
in a Postmodern World. New York: Oxford UP.
McAdams, Dan P., et al. eds. (2006). Identity and Story. Washington: American Psy­
chological Association.
 Illusion (Aesthetic)
Werner Wolf

1 Definition

Aesthetic illusion is a basically pleasurable mental state that emerges

during the reception of many representational texts, artifacts or per­
formances. These representations may be fictional or factual, and in
particular include narratives (2.3 and 4). Like all reception effects, aes­
thetic illusion is elicited by a conjunction of factors that are located (a)
in the representations themselves, (b) in the reception process and the
recipients, and (c) in cultural and historical contexts. Aesthetic illusion
consists primarily of a feeling, with variable intensity, of being imagi-
natively and emotionally immersed in a represented world and of ex­
periencing this world in a way similar (but not identical) to real life. At
the same time, however, this impression of immersion is counterbal­
anced by a latent rational distance resulting from a culturally acquired
awareness of the difference between representation and reality.

2 Explication

2.1 The Nature of Aesthetic Illusion

Aesthetic illusion is distinguished from real-life hallucinations and

dreams in that it is induced by the perception of concrete representa­
tional artifacts, texts or performances. Moreover, it is distinct from de­
lusions in that it is neither a conceptual nor a perceptual error, but a
complex phenomenon characterized by an asymmetrical ambivalence.
This ambivalence derives from the positioning of aesthetic illusion on a
scale between two poles, mutually exclusive, of total rational distance
(disinterested “observation” of an artifact as such [Walton 1990: 273])
and complete immersion (“psychological participation” [240–89]) in
the represented world and moreover from the fact that the position
between these poles always maintains a certain proximity to the pole of
immersion. In view of this, the term “aesthetic illusion,” where “aes­
thetic” implies awareness that “illusion” is triggered by an artifact, is
145 Illusion (Aesthetic)

more satisfactory than the various synonyms used in research: “absorp­

tion” (Cohen 2001: 258); “recentering” and “immersion” (Ryan 1991:
21–3; cf. also Schaeffer 1999: 243 passim); “involvement” and “psy­
chological participation” (Walton 1990: 240–89); “transportation”
(Gerrig 1993: 12 passim); “effet de réel” (Barthes 1968). Strictly
speaking, it is even erroneous to call aesthetic illusion simply
“illusion” or “immersion” except by way of abbreviation, since by this
—as in all of these alternative terms (and also in the misleading at­
tempt to regard aesthetic illusion as a form of magic; Balter 2002)—the
rational distance induced by the underlying awareness of the non-natur­
al character of representation is disregarded.
Illusion, to the extent it is aesthetic, presupposes the implicit accept­
ance of a “reception contract,” one of whose stipulations Coleridge de­
scribed as “the willing suspension of disbelief for the moment” ([1817]
1965: 169). Aesthetic illusion thus involves several mental/psychic
spheres and operates within two dimensions (cf. also Walton 1990:
273): (a) in the background as a latent, rational awareness “from
without,” namely that the illusion-inducing artifact is a mere represen-
tation; and (b) in the foreground as a mainly intuitive mental simulation
where this awareness is bracketed out in favor of an imaginary experi­
ence of represented worlds “from within.” This simulation involves
emotions and sensory quasi-perceptions (including, but not restricted
to, visual imagination), but also reason to the extent that a certain ra­
tionality is required to make sense of the represented world. Owing to
its dual nature, aesthetic illusion is gradable according to the degree of
immersion or distance and is thus unstable. Immersion, which in many
cases seems to be the default option during the reception process of
representations and therefore continues to hold on subsequent readings
(Walton 1990: 262–63), can be suspended or undermined at any given
moment by the actualization of the latent consciousness of representa­
tionality. This “willing construction of disbelief” (Gerrig 1993: 230)
can be triggered not only by the recipient, but also by the work itself,
thanks to → metalepsis and to other illusion-breaking devices em­
ployed by metafictionality (→ metanarration and metafiction), or due
to interference by contextual factors.
Since illusionist works provide a simulation of real-life experience,
aesthetic illusion always has a quasi-experiential quality about it and
sometimes, in addition, a referential dimension: the tendency to credit
illusionist representation with having indeed taken place in the real
world. This referential aspect is not always at issue, however, for
fantasy or science fiction, which make no pretense at referring to reali-
ty, can nevertheless induce a powerful aesthetic illusion. In all cases,
 Illusion (Aesthetic) 146

aesthetic illusion implies the subjective impression of being experien­

tially “re-centered” in a represented world, whether factual or fictional,
an impression that amounts to a “side-participant stance” (Gerrig 1993:
108, 239) rather than to identification with a → character, the latter be­
ing a special case of feeling re-centered.
Functionally, aesthetic illusion constitutes one of the most effective
ways of ensuring the reception of representations, since it can cater to
various human desires and offers vicarious experience without serious
consequences. The general attractiveness of aesthetic illusion also
qualifies it as a vehicle of persuasion for didactic, advertising or propa­
ganda purposes. A persuasive purpose may be seen also at work in the
potential of aesthetic illusion to make the recipient accept more readily
the tendency of aesthetic representations to introduce an unrealistic
surplus of coherence and meaning, i.e. to present worlds whose closure
and meaningfulness, through such devices as the use of coincidence,
poetic justice, etc., may be regarded as deviating from the contingency
of life. From a historical point of view, the persuasiveness of aesthetic
illusion may even be regarded as related to the process of seculariza­
tion in the Western world, for the relevance of illusion appears to have
increased proportionally as belief in the self-evident meaningfulness of
the world and religiously inspired representations has decreased. It
seems that with the increase of credibility invested in individual works,
aesthetic belief has progressively filled the place occupied by philo­
sophical and religious beliefs as tacit basis of meaning, even though,
outside deconstructionist and postmodernist circles, belief in the power
of representation as such persists.

2.2 Factors Contributing to Aesthetic Illusion

Aesthetic illusion is produced by several factors, described by Gom­

brich (1960: 169) as elements contributing to a “guided projection.”
Such projection takes place in the mind of the recipient. When it is in a
state of aesthetic illusion, however, the mind’s activity is not free-float­
ing, but rather guided by the illusionist representation, both recipient
and representation being influenced by contexts which in turn also con­
tribute to the illusionist projection. Thus the representation, the recipi­
ent and the context (situational, cultural, etc.) must all be taken into ac­
count as factors in a theory of illusion.
The individual representation is the guiding “script” that provides
the raw material for what will appear on the mental “screen” and serves
to trigger aesthetic illusion. Owing to the quasi-experiential nature of
this state of mind, successful illusionist representations furnish formal
147 Illusion (Aesthetic)

analogies to the structures and features of real-life experience.

Moreover, they offer contents that correspond to the objects and scripts
encountered in, or applicable to, real-life experience, at least to a cer­
tain extent. Generally, illusionist representations are accessible with re­
lative facility. They offer potential recipients with material to lure them
into the represented worlds and create a sense of verisimilitude, a pre­
requisite for the emergence of aesthetic illusion, although generic con­
ventions may serve to counteract improbable elements.
While the illusionist representation provides the script, the recipi­
ents are called on to act as its (mental) “directors” or “producers,” us­
ing it along with their own world-knowledge and empathetic abilities
for “projection” onto their mind’s “screen.” This activity, as well as the
nature of the mental screen, results in the recipients and the reception
process becoming decisive, albeit problematic, factors in the produc­
tion of aesthetic illusion. For even if it is conceded that the principal
precondition of aesthetic illusion (namely the human ability to mentally
dissociate oneself from the here-and-now and imagine being some­
where else, someone else, in some other time) is an anthropological
constant, a recipient’s illusionist response to an artifact remains heavily
dependent on individual factors. These include range of experience,
age, gender, interests, cultural background, and the ability to read
works of art aesthetically, but also the situation of reception and, of
course, the recipient’s willingness to “participat[e] psychologically in
[a] game of make-believe” (Walton 1990: 242). As for the latter factor,
immersion seems to satisfy a powerful psychological predisposition,
even enabling one, under the influence of generic conventions, to inte-
grate into the reception such blatantly non-realistic phenomena as non-
diegetic film music (Cohen 2001: 254).
As for cultural and historical contexts—the “rooms” in which po­
tentially illusionist scripts are originally located and the locations
where guided projections take place—a plurality of such contexts must
always be assumed, although to a lesser degree when a text, its author
and its reader are contemporary and form part of the same culture. This
context dependence has significant consequences, for it means that aes­
thetic illusion can be conceived of as the effect of a relative corre-
spondence or analogy between a representation and essential culturally
and historically induced concepts of reality and schemata of percep­
tion. It is these schemata and epistemic frameworks together with cer­
tain experiential contents that govern verisimilitude as a prime condi­
tion of aesthetic illusion. Since there is no universally valid perception
and experience of reality, let alone a worldview that is generally ac­
knowledged to be natural, any disparities between the contexts of pro­
 Illusion (Aesthetic) 148

duction and those of reception may substantially affect aesthetic illu­

sion. Verisimilitude—and with it aesthetic illusion—is therefore to a
large extent a historical and cultural variable. Another relevant and
equally variable contextual factor is the set of frames, including gener­
ic conventions, that rule the production and reception of the arts and
media in a given period. Most important, however, is the question of
the extent to which aesthetic illusion itself and an aesthetic approach to
artworks that implies aesthetic distance are practiced or known in a
given culture or period or whether, for instance, a worldview that fa­
vors enchantment prevails, owing to which specific artifacts are re­
garded as numinous realities.
With the two variables recipient and context in mind, everything
that can be said about the core of all text-centered approaches to aes­
thetic illusion, namely illusionist representation itself, becomes prob­
lematic. For these variables make it difficult, if not impossible, to de­
cide on the actual illusionist effect of a given work, text, technique, etc.
for all periods and all individuals. However, this does not mean that
nothing at all can be said about the factor artifact or text, for given sim­
ilar recipients and similar reception contexts, representations will ap­
pear as more or less illusionist according to intra-compositional factors.
One essential similarity among recipients, contributing to the theoreti-
cal construct of an “average” recipient, can in fact be postulated,
namely that the recipient is prepared and able to “willingly suspend
disbelief” when confronted with illusionist artifacts, but remains dis­
tanced enough not to become enmeshed in experiential or referential
delusion.
Historically and culturally, the average → reader as a factor in a
theory of illusion can be restricted to the past few centuries of Western
culture during which the evolution of aesthetic verisimilitude and re­
sponses to illusionist art are comparatively well documented. In fact,
Western cultural history of this period offers an extensive corpus of
primary works that continue to be read as illusionist, in contrast to
works that obstruct illusionist access such as radically experimental
postmodernist fictions. With this illusionist corpus and its features in
mind, a number of points regarding the illusionist potential of a given
representation can in fact be made. If, in the following argument, terms
such as “characteristics” and “principles” are employed, they are not
meant to function in the illusionist reception process as essences with
fixed effects. Rather, the characteristics and principles of illusionist
representation are to be regarded as deriving from prototypes that pos­
sess a particularly high degree of illusionist potential according to aes­
149 Illusion (Aesthetic)

thetic theory and testimonies of reception of the past and/or of personal

experience.

2.3 Typical Characteristics of Illusionist Representations and

the Principles of Illusion-making: the Case of Narrative Fiction

Aesthetic illusion can be elicited by a broad range of texts and works.

There is no restriction as to their being factual or fictional, narrative or
descriptive (a fact often overlooked in narratological treatments of im­
mersion, as e.g. in Schaeffer & Vultur 2005), and they may occur in a
wide variety of media and genres. Aesthetic illusion is therefore a
transmedial, transmodal and transgeneric phenomenon. There is only
one general proviso, namely that it be triggered by a representation, in­
cluding narrative fiction, drama, lyric poetry (Wolf 1998; Müller-
Zettelmann 2000: chap. 3.2.6; Hühn & Kiefer 2005), painting, sculp­
ture, photography, film, and contemporary virtual realities such as
computer games (Ryan 2006: 181–203), while excluding (most) instru­
mental music (Ryan 2001: 15) from the range of potentially illuding
media. Since describing aesthetic illusion in the various media would
require, at least in part, a media-specific theory in each case and also
because, as will become clear below, verbal narratives are character­
ized by a special affinity to aesthetic illusion, the following discussion
will focus on certain features and principles at work in illusionist rep-
resentations with reference to narrative fiction.
In the history of prose fiction, one illusionist prototype is the 19th-
century realist novel, a genre that has always been credited with a par­
ticularly high potential for eliciting illusionist immersion. Realist nov­
els draw their readers into their worlds by maintaining a feeling of
verisimilitude and experientiality while minimizing aesthetic distance.
Considering illusionist texts such as these, it is possible to single out il­
lusion-relevant textual features and link them to principles of fictional
illusion-making which contribute to producing these features through
specific narrative devices.
In narratological terms, typically illusionist novels (e.g. Eliot’s
Adam Bede or Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles) display the following
four characteristic features (Wolf 1993a: chap. 2.3): (a) their content or
story level is the central text level, as their storyworlds are character­
ized by a certain extension and complexity, are consistent, tend to be
life-like in their inventory and thus elicit the interest of the (contempo-
rary) reader; (b) their transmission or discourse level remains compara-
tively inconspicuous and ‘transparent,’ serving mainly to depict the
storyworld and to enhance the → tellability, consistency and life-like­
 Illusion (Aesthetic) 150

ness of the story; (c) the content and its transmission tend to be serious;
(d) illusionist texts are predominantly hetero-referential.
As not all of these traits are self-explanatory, some comment is re­
quired. Highlighting of the content level (a) can be explained by the at­
tempt to portray a represented world in which recipients can become
experientially immersed. A certain textual extension is typical of illu­
sionist worlds because aesthetic illusion is a state that emerges during a
process in which a transition must occur from the perceptions normally
experienced in everyday life to aesthetic reception. If this process is too
short owing to a minimal text basis, immersion may fail to take place.
This factor also accounts for the relative complexity of typical illusion­
ist worlds. Although this may seem a special feature of realist fiction
only, it is in fact in keeping with the general illusionist effect of re-cen­
tering the recipient in a world whose quality as “world” is enhanced by
both extension and complexity.
The consistency and life-likeness (or probability) of realistic narra-
tives are actually facets of a more general quality of illusionist worlds,
namely their accessibility. Represented worlds can provide different
degrees and types of accessibility (Ryan 1991: 32–3). It is obvious that
enhanced accessibility facilitates illusionist immersion and that illu­
sionist works therefore tend to lower the threshold of access as much as
possible. In realism, this tendency is manifest in the construction and
presentation of fictional worlds that seem to be an extension of the re­
cipients’ real world in terms of spatial, temporal (contemporary) and
social settings but also, for instance, in terms of norms, ideals and epi­
stemological preconceptions about the “readability” of reality.
The relative inconspicuousness of the transmission level (b), which
is responsible for the mediality (→ narration in various media) but also
for the artificiality of representation and thus for potentially distance-
creating factors, corresponds to the centrality of the content level and is
closely related to the tendency of illusionist immersion to predominate
over aesthetic distance. Therefore, typically illusionist works, and in
particular realist novels, usually keep distancing elements to a mini-
mum.
The shunning of aesthetic distance can also be witnessed in a no
less typical tendency of illusionist works toward seriousness (c), al­
though this does not exclude the comic from illusionism entirely. Com­
edy and laughter imply emotional distance, which runs counter to the
strong affinity between emotional involvement and aesthetic illusion.
The interrelation between illusion, emotions and seriousness can be
seen not only in realist fiction, but also in drama: tragedy tends toward
151 Illusion (Aesthetic)

aesthetic illusion (Aristotle’s catharsis presupposes empathetic immer­

sion), while comedy frequently suspends illusion.
The predominant hetero-referentiality of realist fiction (d) is a con­
sequence of the general fact that all illusionist artifacts, even those that
ultimately play with illusion, are representational: they evoke or “rep-
resent” a world that seems to exist outside the artifact, and they appear
to refer to something other than the works in question. As a special,
historical kind of mimesis, the realistic novel is in fact strongly hetero-
referential. This does not mean, however, that mimesis alone guaran­
tees the emergence of aesthetic illusion, nor that all illusionist texts
must be either realistic (they may also be modernist) or mimetic in the
sense of imitating a slice of life (science fiction, in defiance of such im­
itation, can also be illusionist).
The basic characteristics found at the textual level of illusionist fic­
tion can be linked to a number of intra-compositional principles of illu­
sion-making, the cumulative effect of which is to produce its typical
features of illusion-making as detailed above. These principles regulate
the predominant immersive facet of illusionist works, while the latent
distance also implied in aesthetic illusion is usually regulated by fram­
ing devices (e.g. the paratextual or metatextual marking of a novel as
such [Wolf 2006]). Owing to the extra-compositional factors involved
in the emergence of aesthetic illusion, however, these principles can
only be regarded as tendencies that enhance a potential of aesthetic il­
lusion but cannot guarantee its realization per se. The following four
principles, which shape the material, coherence and presentation of an
illusionist world, plus two additional principles that contribute to the
persuasiveness peculiar to the rhetoricity of illusionist texts, must be
distinguished (Wolf 1993a: chap. 2.2, 2004).
(a) The principle of access-facilitating construction and vivid
presentation of the represented world’s inventory. The main function of
this principle is to provide the inventory or repertoire of an illusionist
world with activating concepts, schemata and scripts stored in the re­
cipient’s mind, stemming mostly from previous real-life experience.
These → schemata are bound mainly to concrete phenomena (story ex­
istents in the case of narratives) rather than abstract ones. This prin­
ciple also ensures easy access to the worlds thus constructed and facili-
tates imaginative immersion by maintaining a certain balance between
familiarity and novelty (cf. principle (e)) as well as by providing graph­
ic details about this world.
(b) The principle of consistency of the represented world. Illusionist
works enhance the probability of their worlds by linking their inventory
according to abstract “syntactic” concepts (in narratives this includes
 Illusion (Aesthetic) 152

chronology, causality, etc.) on the basis of fundamental logical and epi­

stemological rules that are compatible with, or identical to, the rules
that (appear to) govern real life. All of this produces the impression of
consistency and invites meaningful interpretations while avoiding con­
tradictions (the “natural” quality of the resulting representations is
what renders the level of transmission relatively inconspicuous). Thus
the overall tendency is to ensure a fundamental analogy between the il­
lusionist world and the perception of the real world. Consistency oper­
ates according to Ryan’s “principle of minimal departure” (1991: 51):
it is a default option, although departures are possible and may even re­
main compatible with illusion, provided they are explained or linked to
generic conventions, for example, thus obtaining a secondary kind of
plausibility.
(c) The principle of life-like perspectivity. The experientiality and
probability of illusionist representations, which tend to provide recipi­
ents with “deictic centers” as a vantage point from which to experience
the represented worlds (Zwaan 1999: 15), are the result of other prin­
ciples as well. Motivated by the perspectivity of everyday experience—
i.e. the inevitable limitation of perception according to the point of
view (→ perspective) and the horizon of the perceiver—one of the
noteworthy characteristics in the history of illusionism (in both paint­
ing and literature) is the development and perfection of techniques that
imitate this perspectivity. In Western fiction, this development has re-
sulted in the increasing use of internal → focalization since the 18th-
century first-person epistolary novel and later in modernist third-person
“figural narration” with its covert narrators and effect of immediacy.
On the other hand—and this illustrates the fact that aesthetic illusion is
frequently the result of a fine balance between the various principles of
illusion—extreme curtailment of overt narrators can also threaten tex­
tual coherence. In this way, the principle of perspectivity may come
into conflict with the principle of consistency.
(d) The principle of respecting and exploiting the potentials of the
representational macro-frames, media and genres employed. Represen-
tations rely on semiotic macro-frames (typically narrative and descrip-
tive ones), and they also employ specific media and genres. All of these
basic frames of individual representations have particular potentials
and limits. The principle under discussion is responsible for keeping il­
lusionist representations within these limits in order to ensure easy ac­
cessibility and avoid self-reflexive foregrounding of the means of
transmission, for instance. As a result, illusionist narratives show the
basic features of → narrativity and employ descriptions in a way that is
compatible with both the medium and the narrative macro-frame.
153 Illusion (Aesthetic)

Again, certain deviations may remain illusion-compatible, but going

too much against the grain of these basic frames of representation (as
in the hypertrophy of description in the French nouveau roman, for ex­
ample) would highlight mediality as such and foreground the conven­
tionality of narrative or of certain narrative genres. As a result, the
reader’s focus would shift from the represented world as the center of
aesthetic illusion to the conditions of its construction and transmission,
thereby activating aesthetic distance and undermining immersion.
(e) The principle of generating interest, and in particular emotional
interest, in the represented world. This is an active rhetorical principle
resulting from the use of various devices of persuasio that render rep-
resentations attractive and keep distance at a minimum. It imitates real-
life perception in that perception is usually motivated by certain in­
terests. The means by which the recipient’s interest is elicited are
highly variable. They often include moderate departures from conven­
tions and expectations as mentioned in connection with other illusionist
principles, and they may range from catering to recipients’ desires by
providing certain inventory-elements (e.g. sex and crime) to topical ref­
erences and discursive devices intended to create suspense. In accord­
ance with the importance of feelings for illusionist immersion, one par­
ticular area of this principle is appeal to the recipient’s emotions. This
principle is also responsible for the scarcity, in typically illusionist rep-
resentations, of elements such as carnivalesque comedy, as this tends to
reduce emotional involvement.
(f) The principle of celare artem. The tendency of illusionist fiction
to minimize aesthetic distance and the inconspicuousness of its dis­
course is regulated mainly by a principle which, in accordance with the
rhetoric of antiquity and post-medieval aesthetics, may be called the
principle of celare artem. Similarly to other illusionist principles,
celare artem contributes to forming an analogy with a condition of
real-life perception, namely the tendency to disregard the fact that per­
ception is limited owing to its inevitable mediacy. This principle favors
immersion by concealing the mediacy and mediality of representation,
but also, where applicable, fictionality by avoiding paradox-creating
devices such as (non-naturalizable) metalepsis and abstaining from
overly intrusive metatextual elements and, generally, from devices that
lay bare scripts and clichés as constituents of the represented world (al­
though in some cases authenticity-enhancing metatextual devices may
be illusion-compatible).
 Illusion (Aesthetic) 154

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 History of the Term

In Latin, illusio (from illudere [in+ludere]: “make fun of,” “jeer,” “de­
ceive”) has both a negative sense (“deceit,” “jeering”) and a neutral or
positive sense, notably in classical rhetoric, where illusio is an accept­
able device sometimes used as a synonym of “irony.” The negative
sense acquires Christian overtones in post-classical times, as in illu­
siones diaboli (the devil’s deceits), and retains this negative meaning
through Medieval Latin, Old French and Middle English to Shake-
speare. A neutral or positive meaning re-emerges only in the 17 th cen­
tury, as can be seen in the title of Corneille’s comedy L’Illusion
comique (1636). Shortly afterwards, the term can be encountered as an
aesthetic notion denoting dramatic illusion in French aesthetic theory
(e.g. in Abbé d’Aubignac’s Pratique du théâtre 1657). In French 18th-
century aesthetic theory from Dubos to Marmontel and Diderot, illu­
sion becomes a much discussed term, and it is also in the 18 th century
that the term begins to be used in an aesthetic sense in German (often
equated with Schein; Oelmüller ed. 1982). In English, Henry Home,
Lord Kames called illusion an “ideal presence” (Home 1762), but
Coleridge began to use the term “Dramatic Illusion” ([1804/05] 1960,
vol. 1: 176). In the 20th century, it is the art historian Gombrich who,
owing to his magisterial Art and Illusion (1960), perhaps, has done
most to disseminate the term. It continues to be used in spite of
Brinker’s plea that the “concept” (he actually means “term”) be “elim­
inate[d] from aesthetic theory” (1977/78: 191). Nowadays, “immer­
sion” is often used in place of illusion.

3.2 History of the Concept

The beginnings of the Western tradition of aesthetic illusion (“illusion­

ism”) were located by Gombrich (1960: 108) for the visual arts in the
so-called “Greek revolution” which took place between the 6th and the
4th centuries B.C. The transition from the magical and religious use of
artworks (in which representational meaning was to be “read” without
recourse to an illusionist “matching” to real-life appearance) to aesthet­
ic objects which aimed at persuasive life-likeness inaugurated the
Western tradition of illusionist representation. The famous anecdote of
the illusionist contest between the trompe-l’œil painters Parrhasios and
Zeuxis is a good illustration of this new approach to art.
With reference to literature, Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, which
hinges on the notion of mimesis in conjunction with the triggering of
155 Illusion (Aesthetic)

the emotional effects of eleos and phobos, also points toward aesthetic
illusion while further evidence of literary illusion can be found in the
form of the playful incursions in classical Greek comedy. Most impor-
tant, however, is Plato’s hostility toward the mimetic arts due to the il­
lusory nature of artistic representation. During the Renaissance, aes­
thetic illusion became a consciously produced effect in literature and
was even the object of metatextual commentary (although not under
this term), as can be seen in Cervantes’s Don Quixote and in
Shakespeare (Wolf 1993b). In the history of fiction, Don Quixote is a
particularly remarkable milestone, owing to its illusionist ambivalence
(Wolf 1993a: chap. 4; Alter 1975): the novel is informed by both pro-
illusionist elements (thanks to its realistic opposition to the improbable
chivalric romances it parodies) and playful anti-illusionism (resulting
from its obtrusive metafictional dimension). It can thus be said to in­
augurate two antagonistic traditions: the great tradition of illusionist
fiction, which found its peak in the 19th-century realist novel, and an
anti-illusionist counter-tradition in which various devices of “defamil-
iarization” (ostrananie) were developed, notably in Romanticism (in
texts characterized by romantic irony), in modernism and in the experi­
mentations of radical postmodernism, the hitherto unsurpassed climax
of anti-illusionism. In contemporary post-postmodernist fiction, a com­
promise seems to have been achieved in which an often ironic return to
illusionism is combined with moderate illusion-breaking devices in
double-layered ambivalent texts.

3.3 Influential Positions

Ever since it has been cognized as such, aesthetic illusion has been ac­
companied by controversial evaluations, the first manifestation of
which can be seen in the differing stances taken by Plato and Aristotle
toward immersion as an effect of mimesis. From the 17th to the end of
the 19th century, the pro-illusionist position prevailed with the aesthet­
ics of sensibility (represented inter alia by Diderot) and with realism
(endorsed inter alia by Henry James) propagating an illusionism that
was fuelled by an emphasis on the emotional and moral effects of lit-
erature and art as well as on a probabilistic persuasiveness rivaling
non-fictional discourses. The illusion-critical position was motivated
by equally diverse factors. With reference to literature, one factor was
concern for the aesthetic appreciation of literature as an art (in his entry
on “Illusion” in the Encyclopédie, Marmontel opposes Diderot’s ideal
of complete illusion); another factor was distrust of complacent passiv­
ity in the reception of literature, which was thought to prevent its poli-
 Illusion (Aesthetic) 156

tical efficiency (cf. Brecht)—a position overlooking the fact that all re­
ception is an active process. Yet another factor was the Romantic and,
later, postmodernist diffidence with regard to the pre-condition of all
aesthetic illusion, namely representation. It does not come as a surprise,
however, that despite fierce opposition, particularly in recent cultural
history, aesthetic illusion seems to be more alive than ever, notably in
the mass media, since immersion appears to cater well to a fundamental
human need for imaginary experience.
Both aesthetic illusion and anti-illusionism (often designated by
other terms such as “realism” and “immersion” for illusion, and
“metafiction” for anti-illusionism) have been discussed from various
angles. Up to the 1990s, historical approaches (e.g. in part, Gombrich
1960; Strube 1971; Alter 1975), phenomenological and reader-response
approaches (e.g. Lobsien 1975; Smuda 1979) as well as text-centered
approaches (Wolf 1993a) prevailed. More recently, aesthetic illusion
has been viewed from the perspective of possible-worlds theory (Ryan
1991, 2001) as well as in the context of emotion research (Mellmann
2002, 2006), a focus which also informs part of empirical reader re­
sponse research (Miall 1995) and cognitive and/or psychological ap­
proaches (Walton 1990; Gerrig 1993; Anderson 1996; Zwaan 1999;
Bortolussi & Dixon 2003).

3.4 Relevance for Narratology

Aesthetic illusion is not restricted to narratives, as illustrated by im­

portant forms of non-narrative illusionist painting (portraits, still lives,
genre scenes, landscape painting, etc.). However, there is a special rela­
tionship between aesthetic illusion and narrative and, consequently, a
special relevance of this phenomenon to narratology. The link between
illusion and narrative resides in the quasi-experiential quality of all aes­
thetic illusion and the characteristic experientiality of typical narra-
tives. It is true that experience can relate merely to space, a moment in
time or a static state, but that movement and change, especially if unex­
pected, have a particular affinity to experience (as the German Er­
fahrung suggests, containing fahren, “to move,” “to ride”), pointing to
narrative as the most important cognitive macro-frame man has de­
veloped to make sense of experience in and of time. Experientiality has
therefore justly been viewed as one of the fundamental elements of nar­
rativity (Fludernik 1996). Another link, closely related, is that aesthetic
illusion provides life-like experience and that illusionist works provide
analogies to structures and contents of real-life experience, while life is
in turn often experienced according to narrative patterns.
157 Illusion (Aesthetic)

If there is indeed a special but not necessary relationship between

narrative and aesthetic illusion, the question arises with reference to
fiction as to which aspect or part of narrator-transmitted stories is most
important for providing spaces for the “projection” of illusion. It has
been claimed that this is the narrating process and thus the → narrator
(Nünning 2000, 2001). While in some cases this may be true (e.g. in
Tristram Shandy), privileging the narrator in this general way would
render stories with covert narrators or narratives without narrators
(drama, film) less prone to illusion, which is clearly not the case. We
may experience a single voice (including a narrator’s voice), yet a
whole world usually has a higher potential of experientiality, in partic­
ular if it is a narrative world with a high degree of tellability, and this
shows that the primary center of illusion in narratives is the story, i.e.
characters and events (→ event and eventfulness), rather than narra­
tion.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

In spite of the fact that aesthetic illusion is an extremely widespread

phenomenon in the reception of artistic representations, it has received
amazingly scant attention in research, leaving open several areas for
additional research. Investigations could focus on a broader systematic
search for historical evidence of aesthetic illusion, its nature and func­
tions in the various media (narrative as well as descriptive media), and
also on empirical testing of illusion-creating principles (3.3) by collec-
ting responses of contemporary readers to certain representations and
determining to what degree they reflect these principles. Cognitive psy­
chology, together with empirical enquiries, also seems to provide a
promising approach to aesthetic illusion, particularly if it is focused on
the link between immersion and emotion and the analogy between real-
life experience and the experience provided by illusionist works. Last
but not least, owing to the dependency of immersion on the semiotic
macro-frames of narrative and description as well as on the media and
the genres used, a desideratum for future research is certainly interdis­
ciplinary cooperation, not only between narratologists and cognitive
psychologists, but also, and closer to aesthetic concerns, between nar­
ratology and drama theory, art history and film studies. For aesthetic il­
lusion is a transmedial, transmodal and transgeneric phenomenon, and
if this is taken into account, a still better understanding of it will be
achieved, ultimately leading, perhaps, to a general theory of aesthetic
illusion that transcends individual genres, modes of representation and
media.
 Illusion (Aesthetic) 158

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Alter, Robert (1975). Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre. Berkeley:
U of California P.
Anderson, Joseph D. (1996). The Reality of Illusion: An Ecological Approach to Cog­
nitive Film Theory. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.
Balter, Leon (2002). “Magic and the Aesthetic Illusion.” Journal of the American Psy­
choanalytical Society 50, 1163–196.
Barthes, Roland (1968). “L’Effet de réel.” Communications No 11, 84–9.
Bortolussi, Marisa & Peter Dixon (2003). Psychonarratology: Foundations for the
Empirical Study of Literary Response. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Brinker, Menachem (1977/78). “Aesthetic Illusion.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 16, 191–96.
Cohen, Annabel J. (2001). “Music as a Source of Emotion in Film.” P.N. Juslin &
J. A. Sloboda (eds). Music and Emotion: Theory and Research. Oxford: Oxford
UP, 249–72.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor ([1804/05] 1960). Elements of Shakespearean Criticism, 2
vols. Ed. Th. Middleton Raysor. London: Dent.
– ([1817] 1965). Biographia Literaria. Ed. G. Watson. London: Dent.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
Gerrig, Richard J. (1993). Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Acti-
vities of Reading. New Haven: Yale UP.
Gombrich, Ernst H. (1960). Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial
Representation. Oxford: Phaidon.
Home, Henry, Lord Kames ([1762] 1970). Elements of Criticism. Hildesheim: Olms.
Hühn, Peter & Jens Kiefer (2005). The Narratological Analysis of Lyric Poetry: Stu-
dies in English Poetry from the 16th to the 20th Century. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Lobsien, Eckhard (1975). Theorie literarischer Illusionsbildung. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Mellmann, Katja (2002). “E-Motion: Being Moved by Fiction and Media? Notes on
Fictional Worlds, Virtual Contacts and the Reality of Emotions.” PsyArt: A Hyper­
link Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts. Article 020604. [http//www.­
clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2002_mellmann01.shtml] (accessed March 23, 2006).
– (2006). “Literatur als emotionale Attrappe: Eine evolutionspsychologische Lösung
des ‘paradox of fiction’.” U. Klein et al. (eds). Heuristiken der Literaturwissen­
schaft. Paderborn: Mentis, 145–66.
Miall, David S. (1995). “Anticipation and Feeling in Literary Response: A Neuropsy­
chological Perspective.” Poetics 23, 275–98.
Müller-Zettelmann, Eva (2000). Lyrik und Metalyrik: Theorie einer Gattung und ihrer
Selbstbespiegelung anhand von Beispielen aus der englisch- und deutschsprachi­
gen Dichtkunst. Heidelberg: Winter.
Nünning, Ansgar (2000). “‘Great Wits Jump’: Die literarische Inszenierung von Erzähl-
illusion als vernachlässigte Entwicklungslinie des englischen Romans von Laurence
Sterne bis Stevie Smith.” B. Reitz & E. Voigts-Virchow (eds). Lineages of the
Novel: Essays in Honour of Raimund Borgmeier. Trier: WVT, 67–91.
159 Illusion (Aesthetic)

– (2001). “Mimesis des Erzählens: Prolegomena zu einer Wirkungsästhetik, Typolo­

gie und Funktionsgeschichte des Akts des Erzählens und der Metanarration.”
J. Helbig (ed). Erzählen und Erzähltheorie im 20. Jahrhundert: Festschrift für Wil­
helm Füger. Heidelberg: Winter, 13–47.
Oelmüller, Willi, ed. (1982). Kolloquium Kunst und Philosophie. Vol. 2: Ästhetischer
Schein. Paderborn: Schöningh.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
– (2001). Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and
Electronic Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
– (2006). Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
Schaeffer, Jean-Marie (1999). Pourquoi la fiction? Paris: Seuil.
– & Ioana Vultur (2005). “Immersion.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclope­
dia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 237–39.
Smuda, Manfred (1979). Der Gegenstand in der bildenden Kunst und Literatur: Typo­
logische Untersuchungen zur Theorie des ästhetischen Gegenstands. München:
Fink.
Strube, Werner (1971). Ästhetische Illusion: Ein kritischer Beitrag zur Geschichte der
Wirkungsästhetik des 18. Jahrhunderts. PhD Diss. U of Bochum.
Walton, Kendall L. (1990). Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Rep­
resentational Arts. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Wolf, Werner (1993a). Ästhetische Illusion und Illusionsdurchbrechung in der Erzähl­
kunst. Theorie und Geschichte mit Schwerpunkt auf englischem illusionsstörenden
Erzählen. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
– (1993b). “Shakespeare und die Entstehung ästhetischer Illusion im englischen Dra­
ma.” Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, n.s. 43, 279–301.
– (1998). “Aesthetic Illusion in Lyric Poetry?” Poetica 30, 251–89.
– (2004). “Aesthetic Illusion as an Effect of Fiction.” Style 38, 325–51.
– (2006). “Introduction: Frames, Framings and Framing Borders in Literature and
Other Media.” W. Wolf & W. Bernhart (eds). Framing Borders in Literature and
Other Media. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1–40.
Zwaan, Rolf A. (1999). “Situation Models: The Mental Leap into Imagined Worlds.”
Current Directions in Psychological Science 8, 15–8.
 Illusion (Aesthetic) 160

5.2 Further Reading

Burwick, Frederick & Walter Pape, eds. (1990). Aesthetic Illusion: Theoretical and
Historical Approaches. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Grabes, Herbert (1978). “Wie aus Sätzen Personen werden ... Über die Erforschung li­
terarischer Figuren.” Poetica 10, 405–28.
Grau, Oliver (2003). Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion. Cambridge: MIT P.
Pape, Walter & Frederick Burwick eds. (1995). Perception and Appearance in Literat­
ure, Culture and the Arts. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Strube, Werner (1976). “Illusion.” J. Ritter & K. Gründer (eds). Historisches Wörter­
buch der Philosophie. Darmstadt: WBG, vol. 4, 204–15.
Walsh, Dorothy (1983). “The Non-Delusive Illusion of Literary Art.” British Journal
of Aesthetics 23, 53–60.
Wolf, Werner (2008). “Is Aesthetic Illusion ‘illusion référentielle’? ‘Immersion’ and its
Relationship to Fictionality and Factuality.” Journal of Literary Theory 2.1, 99–
126, 171–73.
 Implied Author
Wolf Schmid

1 Definition

The concept of implied author refers to the author-image contained in a

work and constituted by the stylistic, ideological, and aesthetic proper­
ties for which indexical signs can be found in the text. Thus, the im­
plied author has an objective and a subjective side: it is grounded in the
indexes of the text, but these indexes are perceived and evaluated dif­
ferently by each individual → reader. We have the implied author in
mind when we say that each and every cultural product contains an im­
age of its maker. The implied author is therefore not a category specific
to verbal narration; it is, however, most often discussed in relation to
linguistic texts, particularly in narratological contexts.

2 Explication

The implied author has, after being introduced by Booth (1961), be­
come a widespread term for a concept referring to the author contained,
but not represented, in a work. This concept presents itself in various
forms. Many users treat it as a term for an entity positioned between
the real → author and the fictive → narrator in the communication
structure of narrative works. Those adopting a critical stance, on the
other hand, use it as a term for a reader-generated construct without an
equivalent pragmatic role in the narrative work. In neither of these us­
ages it is claimed that authors have the intention of creating an image
of themselves in their works. Instead, the image is understood as one of
the by-products that, in the sense of Bühler’s expressive function of
language (1918/20), necessarily accompany each and every symbolic
representation. Any of the acts that produced a work can function as an
indexical sign bearing this indirect form of self-expression. In particu­
lar, these acts include the fabrication of a represented world; the inven­
tion of a story with situations, → characters, and actions; the selection
of a particular action logic with a more or less pronounced world-view;
the deployment of a narrator and his or her → perspective; the trans­
162 Implied Author

formation of the story into a narrative with the aid of techniques such
as flattening simultaneous events into a linear progression and rear­
ranging the order of episodes; and finally, the presentation of the nar­
rative in particular linguistic (or visual) forms.
The concept has provoked questions above all because it has two
dissimilar aspects. On the one hand, it has an objective component: the
implied author is seen as a hypostasis of the work’s structure. On the
other hand, it has a subjective component relating to reception: the im­
plied author is seen as a product of the reader’s meaning-making activ­
ity. The relative importance of these two aspects varies depending on
how the concept is used: essentialists insist on the importance of the
work’s structure in defining the implied author, whereas constructivists
highlight the role played by the freedom of interpretation. At any rate,
it must be remembered that, like the readings of different recipients, the
various interpretations of a single reader are each associated with a dif­
ferent implied author. Depending on the function a work is believed to
have had according to a given reading, the implied author will be re­
constructed as having predominantly aesthetic, practical, or ideological
intentions.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 Russian Formalism, Czech and Polish Structuralism

The concept of the implied author was first formulated systematically

against the background of Russian formalism. The formalist Tynjanov
([1927] 1971: 75) coined the term “literary personality,” which he uses
to refer to a work’s internal abstract authorial entity. Vinogradov, a
scholar of language and style with links to the formalist movement,
began developing the concept of the author’s image (obraz avtora) in
1926 (Čudakov 1992: 237–42; Gölz 2009). He later defined this image
as “the concentrated embodiment of the essence of the work,” as
“drawing together the entire system of the linguistic structures of the
characters in their correlation with the narrator or narrators, and
thereby being the conceptual stylistic centre, the focus of the whole”
(Vinogradov 1971: 118).
In the 1970s, Russian thought on the idea of the author in the text
was taken further by Korman (Rymar’ & Skobelev 1994: 60–102).
Drawing on Vinogradov’s concept of the author’s image and Baxtin’s
theory of dialogic interaction between different points of meaning,
Korman (1977) developed a method that he described as “systemically
subject-based.” At its center lies the study of the author as the “con­
 Implied Author 163

sciousness of the work.” Korman’s approach differs from the theory of

his predecessors in two ways. In Vinogradov’s writings, the author’s
image is described stylistically and presented as the product obtained
when the different styles brought into play in a work are drawn togeth­
er; Korman, on the other hand, concentrates primarily on the relations
between the various centers of consciousness in the work. And whereas
Baxtin’s interest in the problem of the author’s image is primarily
philosophical and aesthetic in nature, Korman’s deliberations are dom­
inated by poetics. For Korman, the author in the work—which he calls
the “conceived author”—is realized “in the correlation of all the con­
stituent textual elements of the work in question with its subjects of
speech, i.e. those subjects to whom the text is attributed, and the sub­
jects of consciousness, i.e. those subjects whose consciousnesses are
expressed in the text” (Korman 1977: 120).
In the context of Czech structuralism, Mukařovský (1937: 353)
spoke at an early date of the author in the work as an “abstract subject
that, contained in the structure of the work, is merely a point from
which it is possible to survey the entire work at a glance.” In any given
work, Mukařovský adds, it is possible to find indications pointing to
the presence of this abstract subject, which must never be identified
with an actual individual such as the author or the recipient. He writes
that the subject of the work “in its abstraction […] merely makes it
possible to project these personalities into the internal structure of the
work” (353).
Taking the ideas of his teacher as his starting point, the second-gen­
eration Czech structuralist Červenka suggested that the “subject of the
work,” or “personality”—the entity that Mukařovský called the “ab­
stract subject”—is the “signified,” the “aesthetic object” of the literary
work, the work itself being treated as an index in the Peircean sense
(Červenka 1969). For Červenka, the “personality” thus defined embod­
ies the principle by which all the semantic levels of the work are dy­
namically united, without forcing us to suppress the inner richness and
personal color that points back to the concrete author.
At the beginning of Polish research on the subject of the work we
find Sławiński (1966, 1967), whose writings reflect the ideas of Vino­
gradov and Mukařovský. Where Vinogradov introduces the concept of
the “author’s image,” Sławiński refers to the “subject of the creative
acts” or the “maker of the rules of speech.” Balcerzan (1968) uses the
term “internal author” to refer to the same entity. “Subject of the work”
is the name given to the authorial entity in the work in the framework
of literary communication outlined by Okopień-Sławińska (1971).
Fieguth (1975: 16), Okopień-Sławińska’s German translator and com­
164 Implied Author

mentator, describes it as the “subject of the use of literary rules in the

work.”

3.2 Approaches in the West

In Western narratology, the introduction of the implied author concept

was linked to work on the notion of the unreliable narrator, in other
words, the axiological disconnection of the narrator from the horizon
of values against which a work operates. The paradigmatic form of the
concept was developed by Booth (1961), an American literary scholar
belonging to the Chicago School (Kindt & Müller 1999, 2006a,
2006b). Since Flaubert, there had existed a view according to which
authors should be objective, that is to say neutral and impassionnate;
Booth, in contrast, underlined the inescapable subjectivity of the au­
thor: “As he writes, [the real author] creates not simply an ideal, imper­
sonal ‘man in general’, but an implied version of ‘himself’ that is dif­
ferent from the implied authors we meet in other men’s works. […] the
picture the reader gets of his presence is one of the author’s most im­
portant effects. However impersonal he may try to be, his reader will
inevitably construct a picture of the [author] who writes in this
manner” (Booth [1961] 1983: 70–1).
These words have been understood by some as referring to a self-
image intentionally created by the author. However, it is more likely
that Booth’s rather imprecise formulation was meant to capture the
idea that the creator of every product is inevitably and involuntarily
represented indexically in it.
Booth, who subscribed to the criticism of the “intentional fallacy”
presented by Wimsatt & Beardsley (1946), hoped to sidestep two tenets
of the New Criticism with the help of the implied author concept: the
doctrine of autonomy and the insistence on the need to concentrate
solely on the work itself. As Booth (1968: 112–13) objected, the New
Criticism’s fight against a string of “fallacies” and “heresies” served to
rule out not just the author but also the audience, the “world of ideas
and beliefs,” and even “the narrative interest” itself. The concept of au­
thorship in the work was meant to provide a way round these obstacles,
to make it possible to talk about a work’s meaning and intention
without falling foul of the criminal heresies.
Booth’s approach has subsequently been taken up and refined on
many occasions (cf. in particular Iser 1972; Chatman 1978: 147–49;
Rimmon-Kenan [1983] 2002: 87–8). Equivalent concepts have also
been introduced, some closely associated with Booth’s, others less so.
Eco (1979), for example, speaks of the “model author,” which he treats
 Implied Author 165

as an interpretive hypothesis of the empirical reader, and Easthope

(1983: 30–72) draws on the linguistic work of Émile Benveniste in sug­
gesting the term “subject of enunciation.” Building on the Slavic ori­
gins of the concept, Schmid (1973) introduced the term “abstract au­
thor” (taken up by, for example, Link 1976: 40; Lintvelt [1981] 1989:
17–22; Hoek 1981), which he has subsequently defended against criti­
cism (Schmid 1986: 300–06; cf. also the revision in Schmid [2005]
2008: 45–64).

3.3 The Implied Author Dispute

The concept of the implied author has given rise to heated debate.
Hempfer (1977: 10) passed categorical judgment over the concepts of
the implied (in his words “implizit,” i.e. “implicit”) author and reader,
writing that the two entities “not only seem to be of no theoretical use
but also obscure the real fundamental distinction, that between the
speech situation in the text and that outside it.” Over two decades later,
Zipfel (2001: 120) presented a similar indictment of the implied author,
condemning the concept as “superfluous to narrative theory,” “hope­
lessly vague,” and “terminologically imprecise.” Bal has established
herself as a bitter opponent of Booth’s implied author and Schmid’s ab­
stract author. These “superfluous” concepts (1981a: 208–09), she be­
lieves, have fostered the misguided practice of isolating authors from
the ideologies of their works. The implied author, she believes, is a de­
ceptive notion that promised to account for the ideology of the text.
“This would have made it possible to condemn a text without con­
demning its author and vice versa—a very attractive proposition to the
autonomists of the ’60s” (1981b: 42).
More balanced criticism has been put forward in many forms. The
objections raised can be summarized as follows: (a) Unlike the fictive
narrator, the implied author is not a pragmatic agent but a semantic en­
tity (Nünning 1989: 33, 1993: 9); (b) the implied author is no more
than a reader-created construct (Rimmon-Kenan [1983] 2002: 87;
Toolan [1988] 2001: 64) and as such should not be personified (Nün­
ning 1989: 31–32); (c) despite repeated warnings against an overly an­
thropomorphic understanding of the implied author, Chatman (1978:
151) puts forward a model in which the implied author functions as a
participant in communication—which is, according to Rimmon-Kenan
([1983] 2002: 89), precisely what the implied author is not; (d) in so far
as it involves a semantic rather than a structural phenomenon, the
concept of the implied author belongs to the poetics of interpretation
rather than the poetics of narration (Diengott 1993: 189); (e) Booth and
166 Implied Author

those who have used the concept after him have not shown how to
identify the implied author of any given text (Kindt & Müller 2006b:
167–68).
These criticisms are perfectly legitimate, but they are not sufficient
to justify excluding the implied author from the attention of narratol-
ogy. Many critics continue to use the concept, clearly because no better
term can be found for expressing that authorial element whose pres­
ence is inferred in a work.
It is also striking that those who advocate abandoning the implied
author have put forward few convincing alternatives. Nünning, for ex­
ample, who believes that it is “terminologically imprecise,” “theoreti-
cally inadequate,” and “unusable in practice,” suggests replacing it
with the “totality of all the formal and structural relations in a text”
(1989: 36). In a chapter “In Defense of the Implied Author,” Chatman
(1990: 74–89) suggests a series of alternatives for readers uneasy with
the term implied author: “text implication”; “text instance”; “text
design”; or simply “text intent.” Finally, Kindt & Müller (1999: 285–
86) identify two courses of action. We should, they suggest, either re­
place the term implied author with that of “author” itself (which would
attract familiar objections from anti-intentionalistic quarters); or, if a
non-intentionalistic concept of meaning is to be retained, we should
speak instead of “text intention.” (Since texts as such do not have in­
tentions, the latter term brings with it an undesirable metonymic shift
from maker to product.)
The case of Genette sheds light on the double-sided view of the im­
plied author concept held by many theorists. Genette did not cover the
implied author in his Narrative Discourse (1972), which led to a cer­
tain amount of criticism (e.g. Rimmon 1976: 58; Bronzwaer 1978: 3);
he then devoted an entire chapter to it in Narrative Discourse Revisited
([1983] 1988: 135–54). Detailed analysis in the latter work leads to a
conclusion that is not at all unfavorable to the implied author. Genette
observes first that, because it is not specific to the récit, the auteur im­
pliqué is not the concern of narratology. His answer to the question “is
the implied author a necessary and (therefore) valid agent between the
narrator and the real author?” (139; emphasis in original) is ambival­
ent. The implied author, he says, is clearly not an actual agent, but is
conceivably an ideal agent: “the implied author is everything the text
lets us know about the author” (148). But we should not, Genette
warns, turn this “idea of the author” into a narrative agent. This places
Genette in a position not so different from that of the proponents of
“full-blown models” of narrative communication to which he refers
(Schmid 1973; Chatman 1978; Bronzwaer 1978; Hoek 1981; Lintvelt
 Implied Author 167

1981), none of whom intend to make the implied author a narrative

agent.

3.4 Towards an Impartial Definition

The implied author can be defined as the correlate of all the indexical
signs in a text that refer to the author of that text. These signs mark out
a specific world-view and aesthetic standpoint. The implied author is
not an intentional creation of the concrete author and differs categori-
cally in this respect from the narrator, who is always an explicitly, or
even implicitly, represented entity. The implied author belongs to a dif­
ferent level of the work; the implied author stands for the principle be­
hind the fabrication of a narrator and the represented world in its en­
tirety, the principle behind the composition of the work (note here
Hühn’s “subject of composition” [1995: 5], a development of East­
hope’s “subject of enunciation” [1983]). It has no voice of its own, no
text. Its word is the entire text with all its levels, the entire work as a
created object. Its position is defined by both ideological and aesthetic
norms.
The implied author has only a virtual existence in the work and can
be grasped only by turning to the traces left behind in the work by the
creative acts of production, taking concrete shape only with the help of
the reader. The implied author is a construct formed by the reader on
the basis of his or her reading of the work. If the process of construc­
tion is not to simply confirm to the meanings that readers want to find
in the first place, it must be based on the evidence in the text and the
constraints this places on the freedom of interpretation. It would there­
fore be more appropriate to speak of reconstruction instead of construc­
tion.
The implied authors of various works by a single concrete author
display certain common features and thereby constitute what we might
call an œuvre author, a stereotype that Booth (1979: 270) refers to as a
“career author.” There are also more general author stereotypes that re-
late not to an œuvre but to literary schools, stylistic currents, periods,
and genres.
Contrary to the impression given by the term “author’s image,” the
relation between the implied author and the real author should not be
pictured in such a way that the former becomes a reflection or copy of
the latter. And despite the connotations of the German impliziter Autor
(implicit author, which brings with it a shift from the reception-based
orientation of implied to an ontologizing concept), the implied author
cannot be modeled as the mouthpiece of the real author. It is not unusu­
168 Implied Author

al for authors to experiment with their world-views and put their be­
liefs to the test in their works. In some cases, for example, authors use
their works to depict possibilities that cannot be realized in the context
of their real-life existence, adopting in the process standpoints on cer­
tain issues that they could not or would not wish to adopt in reality. In
such cases, the implied author can be more radical than the real author
ever really was or, to put it more carefully, than we imagine him or her
to have been on the basis of the evidence available. Such radicalization
of the implied author is characteristic, for example, of Tolstoj’s late
works. The late Tolstoj was much less convinced by many of his ideas
than his implied authors; the latter embodied, and took to extremes, one
particular dimension of Tolstoj’s thought. Conversely, it is also pos­
sible for the ideological horizons of the implied author to be broader
than the more or less markedly ideologically constrained ones of the
real author. An example of this is Dostoevskij, who in his late novels
developed a remarkable understanding of ideologies that he vehe­
mently attacked as a journalist.

3.5 Relevance to Narratology

Why should a semantic entity that is neither a pragmatic participant in

communication nor a specific component of the narrative work be the
concern of narratology at all? Recall here Rimmon (1976: 58), who
points out that “without the implied author it is difficult to analyze the
‘norms’ of the text, especially when they differ from those of the nar­
rator.” Similarly, Bronzwaer (1978: 3) notes that “we need an instance
that calls the extradiegetic narrator into existence, which is responsible
for him in the same way as he is responsible for the diegesis.” Chatman
(1990: 76) points out another advantage of the concept when he writes
that “positing an implied author inhibits the overhasty assumption that
the reader has direct access through the fictional text to the real au­
thor’s intentions and ideology.”
The concept of the implied author is particularly useful in textual
interpretation because it helps us describe the layered process by which
meaning is generated. The existence of the implied author, not part of
the represented world but nonetheless part of the work, casts a shadow
over the narrator, who often appears as master of the situation and
seems to have control over the semantic order of the work. The pres­
ence of the implied author in the model of epic communication high­
lights the fact that narrators, their texts, and the meanings expressed in
them are all represented. Only on the level of the implied author do
these meanings acquire their ultimate semantic intention. The presence
 Implied Author 169

of the implied author in the work, above the characters and the narrator
and their associated levels of meaning, establishes a new semantic level
arching over the whole work: the authorial level (→ narrative levels).

3.6 Implied Reader

In many discussions, the implied author is paired with a recipient entity

occupying a supposedly equivalent position on the opposite side of the
communication situation: the “implied reader” (as in Booth 1961), to
be distinguished from the addressee of the fictive narrator, known as
the “narratee” (Prince 1971) or “fictive reader” (Schmid 1973).
Among the theorists who have worked on the implied reader, Iser
(1972, 1976) deserves special mention. In the first, German version of
The Act of Reading, Iser describes the implied reader (or impliziter
Leser, as he calls it) as a “structure inscribed in the texts” not having
any real existence (Iser 1976: 60). He then goes on (to quote his sub­
sequent English version of the text) to say that the implied reader “em­
bodies all those predispositions necessary for a literary work to exer­
cise its effect—predispositions laid down, not by an empirical outside
reality, but by the text itself. Consequently, the implied reader as a
concept has his roots firmly planted in the structure of the text; he is a
construct and in no way to be identified with any real reader” (Iser
1978: 34).
Červenka ([1969] 1978: 174–75) characterizes the “addressee’s per­
sonality,” by which he means the implied reader, with the statement
that “if the subject of the work was the correlate of the totality of the
acts of creative choice, then the overall meaning of the work’s address­
ee is the totality of the interpretive abilities required: the ability to use
the same codes and develop their material analogously to the creative
activity of the speaker, the ability to transform the potentiality of the
work into an aesthetic object.” In Russia, following on from Korman,
Rymar’ & Skobelev (1994: 119–21) use the term “conceived reader.”
Korman (1977: 127) himself had paired the “author as bearer of the
work’s concept” with the corresponding entity of the “reader as postu­
lated addressee, ideal principle of reception.” Similarly, Eco (1979)
pairs the “model author” with the “model reader,” defined by him as a
hypothesis formed by the empirical author.
It is tempting to assume, as several theorists have indeed done, that
the relationship between implied author and implied reader is a sym­
metrical one. If the implied author is an image of the real author cre­
ated by the real reader, then, we might be inclined to conclude, the im­
plied reader must be the image of the real reader envisaged by the real
170 Implied Author

author. The true state of affairs, of course, is more complicated, for

there is no symmetry between the ways in which the two abstract enti-
ties are formed. The implied reader is ultimately one of the attributes of
the concrete reader’s reconstructed implied author. It follows that the
implied reader is no less dependent on the reader’s individual acts of
reconstruction than the implied author whose attribute it is.
Two hypostases of the (re)constructed implied reader should be dis­
tinguished on the basis of the functions it can be thought to have. First,
the implied reader can be seen as an assumed addressee to whom the
work is directed and whose linguistic codes, ideological norms, and
aesthetic ideas must be taken account of if the work is to be under­
stood. In this function, the implied reader bears the factual codes and
norms that it is assumed the audience will use. Second, the implied
reader can be seen as an image of the ideal recipient who understands
the work in a way that optimally matches its structure and who adopts
the interpretive position and aesthetic standpoint put forward by the
work (Schmid [2005] 2008: 68–72, 2007).

4 Topics for Further Research

(a) Where systematic considerations and practical applications are con­

cerned, there is a pressing need to identify the indexical signs that refer
to the implied author, and to distinguish between author- and narrator-
specific indexes. (b) The manifestation of the implied author in differ­
ent periods, cultural spheres, text types, and genres has yet to be ex­
amined in detail.

(Translated by Alastair Matthews)

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Bal, Mieke (1981a). “The Laughing Mice, or: on Focalisation.” Poetics Today 2, 202–
10.
– (1981b). “Notes on Narrative Embedding.” Poetics Today 2, 41–59.
Balcerzan, Edward (1968). “Styl i poetyka twórczości dwujęzycznej Brunona
Jasińskiego.” Z zagadnień teorii przekładu. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im.
Ossolinskich, 14–16.
Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: Chicago UP.
– (1968). “‘The Rhetoric of Fiction’ and the Poetics of Fictions.” Novel: A Forum on
Fiction 1, 105–17.
 Implied Author 171

– (1979). Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism. Chicago:

Chicago UP.
Bronzwaer, Wilhelmus J. M. (1978). “Implied Author, Extradiegetic Narrator and Pub­
lic Reader.” Neophilologus 62, 1–18.
Bühler, Karl (1918/20). “Kritische Musterung der neueren Theorien des Satzes.” Indo­
germanisches Jahrbuch 4, 1–20.
Červenka, Miroslav ([1969] 1978). “Das literarische Werk als Zeichen.” Der Bedeu­
tungsaufbau des literarischen Werks. München: Fink, 163–83.
Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
– (1990). Coming to Terms. The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca:
Cornell UP.
Čudakov, Aleksandr (1992). “V. V. Vinogradov i ego teorija poėtiki.”
Slovo―vešč’―mir. Moskva: Sovremennyj pisatel’, 219–64.
Diengott, Nilli (1993). “Implied Author, Motivation and Theme and Their Problematic
Status.” Orbis Litterarum 48, 181–93.
Easthope, Antony (1983). Poetry as Discourse. London: Methuen.
Eco, Umberto (1979). The Role of the Reader. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Fieguth, Rolf (1975). “Einleitung.” R. F. Literarische Kommunikation. Kronberg:
Scriptor, 9–22.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
– ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Gölz, Christine (2009). “Autortheorien im slavischen Funktionalismus.” W. Schmid
(ed). Slavische Narratologie. Russische und tschechische Ansätze. Berlin: de Gruy­
ter, 187–237.
Hempfer, Klaus W. (1977). “Zur pragmatischen Fundierung der Texttypologie.”
W. Hinck (ed). Textsortenlehre―Gattungsgeschichte. Heidelberg: Quelle & Me-
yer, 1–26.
Hoek, Leo H. (1981). La marque du titre. La Haye: Mouton.
Hühn, Peter (1995). Geschichte der englischen Lyrik, vol. 1. Tübingen: Francke.
Iser, Wolfgang ([1972] 1974). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in
Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
– (1976). Der Akt des Lesens: Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung. München: Fink.
– (1978). The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins UP.
Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (1999). “Der implizite Autor. Zur Explikation und
Verwendung eines umstrittenen Begriffs.” F. Jannidis et al. (eds). Rückkehr des Au­
tors. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 273–87.
– (2006a). The Implied Author. Concept and Controversy. Berlin: de Gruyter.
– (2006b). “Der implizite Autor. Zur Karriere und Kritik eines Begriffs zwischen
Narratologie und Interpretationstheorie.” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 48, 163–90.
Korman, Boris (1977). “O celostnosti literaturnogo proizvedenija.” Izbrannye trudy po
teorii i istorii literatury. Iževsk: Izd. Udmurtskogo un-ta, 119–28.
Link, Hannelore (1976). Rezeptionsforschung. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
172 Implied Author

Lintvelt, Jaap ([1981] 1989). Essai de typologie narrative. Le “point de vue.” Théorie
et analyse. Paris: Corti.
Mukařovský, Jan (1937). “L’individu dans l’art.” Deuxième congrès international
d’esthétique et de la science de l’art. Paris: F. Alcan, vol. 1, 349–54.
Nünning, Ansgar (1989). Grundzüge eines kommunikationstheoretischen Modells der
erzählerischen Vermittlung. Trier: WVT.
– (1993). “Renaissance eines anthropomorphisierten Passepartouts oder Nachruf auf
ein literaturkritisches Phantom? Überlegungen und Alternativen zum Konzept des
‘implied author’.” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geis­
tesgeschichte 67, 1–25.
Okopień-Sławińska, Alexandra ([1971] 1975). “Die personalen Relationen in der litera­
rischen Kommunikation.” R. Fieguth (ed). Literarische Kommunikation. Kronberg:
Scriptor, 127–47.
Prince, Gerald (1971). “Notes toward a Characterization of Fictional Narratees.” Genre
4, 100–06.
Rimmon, Shlomith (1976). “A Comprehensive Theory of Narrative: Genette’s Figures
III and the Structuralist Study of Fiction.” PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics
and Theory of Literature 1, 33–62.
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics.
London: Methuen.
Rymar’, Nikolaj & Vladislav Skobelev (1994). Teorija avtora i problema chudožest-
vennoj dejatel’nosti. Voronež: Logos-Trast.
Schmid, Wolf (1973). Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Amsterdam:
Grüner.
– (1986). “Nachwort zur zweiten Auflage. Eine Antwort an die Kritiker.” W. Sch.
Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Amsterdam: Grüner, 299–318.
– ([2005] 2008). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
– (2007). “Textadressat.” Th. Anz (ed). Handbuch Literaturwissenschaft. Stuttgart:
Metzler, vol. 1, 171–81.
Sławiński, Janusz (1966). “O kategorii podmiotu lirycznego. Tezy referatu.” J.
Trzynadłowski (ed). Wiersz i poezja. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolinskich,
55–62.
– ([1967] 1975). “Die Semantik der narrativen Äußerung.” Literatur als System und
Prozeß. München: Nymphenburger, 81–109.
Toolan, Michael J. ([1988] 2001). Narrative. A Critical Linguistic Introduction. Lon­
don: Routledge.
Tynjanov, Jurij ([1927] 1971). “On Literary Evolution.” L. Matejka & K. Pomorska
(eds). Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views. Cambridge:
MIT P, 66–78.
Vinogradov, Viktor (1971). “Problema obraza avtora v chudožestvennoj literature.” O
teorii chudožestvennoj reči. Moskva: Izd. Vysšaja škola, 105–211.
Wimsatt, William K. & Monroe C. Beardsley ([1946] 1976). “The Intentional Fallacy.”
D. Newton-de Molina (ed). On Literary Intention. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1–
13.
Zipfel, Frank (2001). Fiktion, Fiktivität, Fiktionalität. Berlin: Schmidt.
 Implied Author 173

5.2 Further Reading

Kahrmann, Cordula, et al. ([1977] 1996). Erzähltextanalyse. Weinheim: Beltz.
Schönert, Jörg (1999). “Empirischer Autor, Impliziter Autor und Lyrisches Ich.” F.
Jannidis et al. (eds): Rückkehr des Autors. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 289–94.
Suleiman, Susan R. & Inge Crosman eds. (1980). The Reader in the Text. Princeton:
Princeton UP.
 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation
Jan Alber & Monika Fludernik

1 Definition

The term “mediacy” was coined by Stanzel ([1955] 1971: 6) and de­
scribes the fact that the story is mediated by the narrator’s discourse in
one of two ways. Either the story is openly transmitted through a nar­
rator who functions as a teller of the tale (“teller mode”) or the medi­
ation is apparently occluded by a direct, im-mediate presentation of the
story through the consciousness of a reflector (character). In the re­
flector mode, we seem to see the storyworld through the eyes of a char­
acter and there seems to be no narrator operating as a mediator. Since
the introduction of Stanzel’s term, the fact of a mediate presentation of
the story has become a general foundation in structuralist narratology.
In Genette, mediation is two-fold on the levels of the discourse (récit)
and the narrator’s act of telling (narration) ([1972] 1980: 27, [1983]
1988: 13); Prince ([1987] 2003: 58) defines narrative as always having
a mediating narratorial level; and Chatman, who looks at film and non-
verbal narratives like ballet, speaks of “narrative transmission” (1978:
22). In recent years, the emphasis on different media using narrative
has resulted in the term mediation being applied to the way in which a
story is told in film, drama, cartoons, ballet, music, pictures, hypertext
narratives, and other genres and forms of narrative.

2 Explication

Narratives can be mediated by narrators who tell and comment on the

story or through agents who merely think, feel, or perceive. Stanzel dis­
criminates between teller- and reflector-characters, arguing that they
are “mediators of [...] fictional events” ([1979] 1984: 150). However,
they mediate story material, i.e. event sequences, in different ways.
Teller-characters narrate, inform, and comment as if they were trans­
mitting a piece of news or a message. Reflector-characters, on the other
hand, do not narrate or transmit. Rather, the reader perceives the action
through the eyes of the reflector character, and this veiled mediacy pro­
175 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation

duces what Stanzel calls “the illusion of immediacy” (141). For

Genette, the so-called “narrating instance” ([1972] 1980: 212) is the
communicative act that initiates both the story and the narrative dis­
course that produces the story. More specifically, the narrating instance
represents events and existents (story), and they are thereby mediated
in a particular (verbal, visual, or audio-visual) sign system (narrative)
([1983] 1988: 13). Chatman speaks of the process of “narrative trans­
mission” as “the source or authority for the story” (1978: 22). For him,
the process of narrative transmission centrally concerns the relation­
ship between story time and discourse time as well as issues of voice
and point of view. Chatman discriminates between “overt narrators,”
who communicate directly to the reader, and “covert narrators,” who
remain more or less hidden in the narrative’s discursive shadows
(1990: 115). Fludernik argues that all narrative is built on the mediat­
ing function of consciousness, a complex “natural” category with sev­
eral available cognitive frames to choose from. She integrates Stanzel’s
mediacy into a more general cognitive model of narrative transmission
based on “real-life” schemata. Teller-mode narratives are mediated by
the consciousness of a narrator; reflector-mode narratives by the con­
sciousness of a protagonist; and neutral narratives by the reader who
“views” and constructs narrative experience (1996: 50).
Underlying the question of what constitutes narrative is the concept
of mediacy. While most narrative theorists define narrative in terms of
event sequences, Stanzel and Genette reject blanket uses of the term
“narrative,” the latter defining narrative stricto sensu as a “verbal
transmission” ([1983] 1988: 16). In Stanzel’s account, drama and film
are im-mediate renderings of story, while (verbal) narrative is a medi­
ated representation—mediated by the discourse of a narrator (openly
mediated) or a reflector (obliquely mediated by presenting an illusion
of im-mediacy). In contrast, Chatman also considers plays, movies, and
cartoons to be narrative because they present stories (1990: 117). For
him, there are “diegetic” and “mimetic” forms of narrative; narratives
can be told or shown. Finally, Fludernik’s redefinition of narrativity on
the basis of experientiality, i.e. “the quasi-mimetic evocation of ‘real-
life experience’” (1996: 12), and its mediation through consciousness
allows her to open up the field of narrative inquiry not only to drama
and film, but also to oral storytelling and some kinds of poetry.
 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation 176

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 Mediacy from Plato to Stanzel

Stanzel’s notion of mediacy has roots in the distinction between

mimesis and haple diegesis in Plato’s Republic (cf. also Lubbock
[1921: 62], Blackmur [1934: xvii–xviii], and Friedman [1955: 1161–
165]). In Plato’s diegetic or “pure” mode, the poet “himself is the
speaker and does not even attempt to suggest to us that anyone but him­
self is speaking.” In the mimetic mode, however, the poet “delivers a
speech as if he were someone else.” According to Plato, the poet may
also combine these two modes and use the mixed mode, as in epic po­
etry (Plato 1937: 392c–95; cf. also Schaeffer & Vultur 2005: 309). Al­
though Plato talks about speech representation (“pure” narrative and
poetry vs. “pure” drama vs. narrative including dialogue insets), the
Platonic mimesis/diegesis distinction as a dichotomy (rather than a tri­
ad) has been used to support both models of speech and thought repre-
sentation (direct vs. free indirect speech) and the generic distinction
between narrative and drama. Stanzel’s assignment of drama to the
pole of immediacy (i.e. unmediated representation of story) therefore
aligns immediacy with mimesis and mediacy with diegesis in the Pla­
tonic sense (→ speech representation).
While for Plato (and later Stanzel) the term “diegetic” refers to nar­
ratorial discourse (i.e. the act of telling), Genette uses the term diégèse
(adopted from Souriau 1951) to denote the fictional world of the char­
acters ([1972] 1980: 27 n. 2, [1983] 1988: 17–8). Genette’s term
diégèse has many affinities with Aristotle’s notion of mimesis. For Ari-
stotle, “pure” narratives and direct representations are two varieties of
what he calls mimesis because both represent a world (2002: 1448a).
Similarly, Genette’s notion of diégèse refers to the primary story level,
specifically excluding the narratorial discourse which is constitutive of
both Plato’s and (in his wake) Stanzel’s understandings of diegesis. For
Genette, “the diégèse is [...] the universe in which the story takes
place” ([1983] 1988: 17). Despite this terminological disparity, how­
ever, Genette and Stanzel agree with regard to the constitutive narra-
torial mediation of narrative, even though for Genette this is achieved
through the narrating instance. For him, the narrator’s speech act pro­
duces the story through the narrative discourse.
Stanzel’s concept of mediacy is directed against Spielhagen’s pre­
scriptive demand for “objectivity,” i.e. immediacy of presentation
([1883] 1967: 220). Stanzel seeks to counter the excessive demands of
“neutralists” like Spielhagen, who argued that the narrator should re­
177 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation

main completely invisible throughout the narrative and thus wished to

see every trace of a narrator erased. Stanzel’s proposal is closely re­
lated to Friedemann’s argument that the presence of a narrator in prose
writings is in no way inferior to immediacy in drama, since the narrator
is evocative of actual experience of the world. According to Friede-
mann, it is the narrator “who evaluates, who is sensitively aware, who
observes” ([1910] 1965: 26), thus conveying an image of the world as
s/he sees it, not as it is in a depersonalized objectivity.
From the beginning, Stanzel presents the concept of mediacy as the
linchpin for a definition of the term “narrative,” and he puts forth a
sophisticated argument for mediacy as a gradable concept ([1955]
1971: 6). More specifically, he points out that mediacy is more or less
foregrounded (as revealed by the presence or absence of comments by
an authorial narrator), but its absence in the figural narrative situation
is merely apparent. In the final version of his model, Stanzel revises the
figural narrative situation by integrating it into the illusion of immedi­
acy in order to constitute the reflector mode of narration, which is re­
sponsible for producing this illusion. In opposing the teller mode and
the reflector mode, he significantly reformulates his original typology,
dating from 1955, by instituting two basic types of mediacy: teller-
mode and reflector-mode mediacy.
In this discussion, Stanzel proceeds from three pairs of oppositions
arranged as scaled categories of person, perspective, and mode (medi­
acy). The first element of the narrative situation, person, is based on
the relations between the narrator and the characters, and it ranges from
identity (first-person reference) to non-identity (third-person reference)
of the realms of existence of the → narrator and the → characters. Per­
spective directs the reader’s attention to the way in which s/he per­
ceives the fictional world, extending from internal (perception located
in the main character or within the events) to external (perception lo-
cated at the periphery of the events) (→ perspective). Finally, mode
breaks down into “overt mediacy of narration [teller mode, J.A./M.F.]”
and “covert [...] mediacy which produces the illusion of immediacy in
the reader [reflector mode, J.A./M.F.]” (Stanzel [1979] 1984: 141).
Stanzel regards the three narrative situations (first-person, authorial,
and figural) as descriptions of basic possibilities of theorizing narration
as mediacy. He also introduces a dynamic analysis into narrative trans­
mission by demonstrating that narrative situations do not span entire
novels uniformly. In his remarks on narrative dynamization, he dis­
cusses narrative profile and narrative rhythm. Although this dynamiza­
tion is defined as a dynamization “of the narrative situation,” i.e. a
study of “the variations of the narrative situation during the course of
 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation 178

the narrative process,” the subsequent analysis actually focuses on the

“relation of the narrative parts, that is, to dialogue and dramatized
scene; specifically [on] their purely quantitative ratio and their distribu­
tion” ([1979] 1984: 63–7). Besides these proportions, the incidence of
direct speech vs. indirect and free indirect speech and thought repre-
sentation is also taken into account. The second term, narrative rhythm,
concerns the distribution of narratorial emphasis in a specific novel and
refers to the fact that in most novels, the narrator figure manifests him-
or herself prominently at the beginning of the text and sometimes at the
end, but then lapses into inactivity when the plot becomes exciting, re­
surfacing only at moments of narrative report, commentary, or descrip­
tion. The result of this configuration is a simultaneous “decrease in
these authorial intrusions [which] parallels the increase of the hero’s
‘perspective solipsism’” ([1979] 1984: 69).
Nevertheless, it must be noted that the introduction of the three axes
(identity vs. non-identity of realms of existence; external vs. internal
perspective, teller vs. reflector modes) and emphasis on the dynamiza­
tion of the narrative situation tend to foreground “mode” (i.e. the dis­
tinction between tellers and reflectors) and to background “person”
(Cohn 1981: 168). Cohn additionally points out that Stanzel’s category
of perspective merges the “presentation of space (the visible outer
world)” into the “presentation of consciousness (the invisible inner
world)” (175). And since perspectives on fictional space and fictional
minds do not always coincide (Uspenskij 1973: 105–07), Cohn con­
siders this axis to be less unified than the other two (cf. also Cohn
1990). She therefore proposes to simplify Stanzel’s typological circle
by subsuming the category of perspective under the heading of mode
(1981: 179).

3.2 Mediacy in Genette and Chatman

Genette considers Stanzel’s category of mode to be superfluous, as he

finds it “easily reducible to our common category of perspective”
([1983] 1988: 116). In his view, Stanzel’s distinction between teller-
and reflector-characters confuses the question of voice, or, more pre­
cisely, person (“who speaks?”) with that of mood or, more precisely,
perspective (“who sees?”). He thus revises Cohn’s amendment of Stan­
zel by proposing a different taxonomy which “diversifies an initial ty­
pology that was [...] altogether too limited to the most frequent situ­
ations” (119). Genette’s model is based on the cross-tabulation of het­
erodiegetic and homodiegetic forms of narrating (“who speaks?”) and
the three types of → focalization (zero, internal, external) (“who
179 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation

sees?”) (21; [1972] 1980: 189–94, 245). Genette considers this tax­
onomy to be an improvement because it is more systematic and in­
cludes less common narrative forms such as Hemingway’s “The
Killers,” a form of heterodiegetic narration with external focalization
(the neutral subtype in Stanzel [(1955) 1971: 93]), and Camus’s
L’Étranger, a form of homodiegetic narration with external focaliza­
tion.
Stanzel’s mediacy is equivalent to what Genette calls “narrating
act” and “narrative.” More specifically, Genette discriminates between
“story (the totality of the narrated events), narrative (the discourse,
oral or written, that narrates them), and narrating (the real or fictive act
that produces that discourse—in other words, the very fact of recount-
ing)” ([1983] 1988: 13). In this model, the narrating act shapes and
transforms the story through the narrative discourse. Similarly, Rim­
mon-Kenan uses the terms story, text, and narration ([1983] 2002: 3),
while Bal modifies Genette’s terminology by arguing that it is by way
of the text that the reader has access to the story, of which the fabula is
a memorial trace that remains with the reader after the reading ([1985]
1997: 5).
When Chatman introduced the principle of “narrative transmission,”
he discriminated between “overt narrators,” “covert narrators,” and
forms of “non-narration” for neutral narratives (1978: 22). Later, Chat­
man rejects the idea of non-narration by arguing that “every narrative is
by definition narrated—that is, narratively presented” (1990: 115), but
he maintains the distinction between overt and covert narrators, equi­
valent to Stanzel’s mediacy. His model is in close agreement with Stan­
zel’s, except that he includes drama and film among the narrative
genres and therefore does not reduce narrative transmission or mediacy
to the discourse of a narrative voice. Chatman provides a sliding scale
from overt to covert narrators based on the linguistic markers of sub­
jectivity, the presence of narratorial comments, and the use of evalua-
tive phrases. Like Stanzel and Genette, he argues that all narratives
have a narrator, so that all three theorists clearly oppose the Ban­
fieldian “no-narrator” theory (1982), according to which certain sen­
tences of fiction cannot possibly be enunciated by a narrator. Chatman
argues that “narrative presentation entails an agent,” even when “the
agent bears no signs of human personality” (1990: 115). The three au­
thors agree that narratives always present a story which is mediated by
a narrator’s discourse. Furthermore, Chatman stresses the conjunction
of story and mediatory discourse by pointing out that “narrative entails
movement through time not only ‘externally’ (the duration of the
 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation 180

presentation of the novel, film, play), but also ‘internally’ (the duration
of the sequence of events that constitute the plot)” (9).
It is quite apparent that Stanzel’s teller mode corresponds to Chat­
man’s scale which ranges from overt to covert narration (i.e. from sub­
jective and foregrounded tellers to “objective,” neutral, and back-
grounded narration). By contrast, with regard to Stanzel’s reflector-
mode narrative, in which an illusion of immediacy is projected, Chat­
man (1978: 198) argues that a covert narrator expresses the thoughts of
a character, while Genette ([1983] 1988: 115) describes such a scenario
as heterodiegetic narration with internal focalization. What the two ter­
minologies fail to take into account, however, is the prototypical ab­
sence of a foregrounded narrator in reflector-mode narratives or, to put
it differently, the fact that in order to read an extended passage as in­
ternal focalization, a pronounced teller must not interfere because such
a foregrounded narrative voice would impede a reading of the text from
the character’s perspective. Stanzel shows that Modernist novels (e.g.
Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) establish a representa­
tion of the narrative world which is (or seems to be) filtered through
the consciousness of the protagonist (cf. also James [1909]: 322–25).
This effect can only be achieved by completely backgrounding the nar­
rative voice reporting on external events (for a critique of this claim,
see Schmid 1968). By distinguishing between a teller and a reflector
mode, however, the mere reduction of the narratorial voice to a default
existence is not sufficient to characterize the reflector mode, since it is
equally necessary to have a predominant internal perspective to pro­
duce the relevant effect. The reflector mode as mode only makes sense
theoretically when one conceives of a different type of transmission
through the character’s perspective or consciousness in contrast to the
prominent (first- or third-person) teller-mode narrative which is medi­
ated by an explicit transmitter.

3.3 Newer Developments

Schmid (1982) puts forth an alternative model of narrative mediation

by breaking down the story vs. discourse dichotomy into four terms:
Geschehen (events); Geschichte (fabula or story); Erzählung (plot);
Präsentation der Erzählung (narrative discourse). He goes on to posit
three processes of transformation between these levels, all of which are
accomplished by the narrator. According to Schmid, the mediating nar­
rator first selects particular situations, characters, events, and qualities
from the invented story material and transforms them into a story. The
narrator then transforms the story into a narrative plot, going through a
181 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation

process that correlates with the linearization of simultaneous event se­

quences and the permutation of chronological story segments. And fi­
nally, the narrator presents the narrative by verbalizing it in a particular
style. However, as Cohn argues, fictional narratives do not typically
transform something pre-existent into a narrative, and they are thus
plotted rather than emplotted (1990: 781). It is therefore worth noting
that Schmid assumes an ideal-genetic perspective: the invented story
material logically precedes the presentation of the narrative.
Fludernik (1996) takes Stanzel’s concept of mediacy further by lo-
cating all mediation in narrative transmission through consciousness
(which can surface on several levels and in different shapes). For her,
all narratives operate through the projection of consciousness—the
character’s, that of the narrative voice, or the reader’s. She also departs
from the general tendency to identify → narrativity with the presence
of a story/plot transmitted in narrative discourse. While most narrative
theorists define narrative through sequentiality or progression, Fluder-
nik argues that there can be narratives without plot, but there cannot be
narratives without a human experiencer of some sort at some narrative
level. She redefines narrativity in terms of experientiality, with embod­
iment constituting the most basic feature of experientiality: embod-
iment evokes all the parameters of a real-life schema of existence
which has to be situated in a specific time and space frame. In addition,
she broadens the analysis to include a wide variety of narratives, fol­
lowing on from Chatman (1978: 96, 1990: 115) and Bal ([1985] 1997:
5).
Fludernik proposes to expand the ways in which narrative transmis­
sion occurs, arguing that all mediacy (or mediation) occurs through
cognitive → schemata and that what is being mediated is not primarily
a story (although in the vast majority of narratives such a series of
events does indeed occur), but experientiality, a conjunction of report­
ability and point (→ tellability). “Reportability” characterizes the inter-
est which tellers and listeners entertain in narratives while “point”
refers to the motivations for telling the story. Since experience is close-
ly associated with actions, event sequences underlie experientiality,
with suspense fulfilling a prominent role. Other emotions or thoughts
may be foregrounded, however, and some narratives (though few) actu­
ally operate without plot. Beckett’s short prose work “Ping” is an ex­
ample of a plotless narrative. In this text, a disembodied voice presents
us with repeated descriptions of the same strange world which is some­
what reminiscent of a prison scenario. The only thing we learn is that a
body is trapped in a small, white container. This prose work lacks
events, but it clearly depicts consciousness and might be read as the ag­
 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation 182

onized ruminations of the body’s mind struggling with some kind of

traumatic experience (Alber 2002).
Mediacy is constituted by the following cognitive frames or
schemata, all of which relate to our real-world knowledge (about
telling, experiencing, viewing/observing, and reflecting) and provide us
with access to the narrative: (a) the “telling” frame (narratives focusing
on a teller figure); (b) the “experiencing” frame (narratives roughly
corre-sponding to reflector-mode narratives); (c) the “viewing” frame
(this frame occurs less frequently than (a) or (b), but relies on a basic
witness position in relation to observed events); (d) the “reflecting”
frame (when narratives project a ruminating consciousness). Con­
sciousness mediates these frames in the reading process in which read­
ers narrativize what they read as narrative, resorting to these four
schemata but also to generic concepts and narratological tools as well
as basic real-world knowledge (such as our understanding of intention­
ality as a goal-oriented process) which is also stored in scripts and
frames (Fludernik 1996: 12–52). On this basis, natural narratology
moves away from the idea of the narrator or the illusion of narration to
a wider spectrum of cognitive frames and processes on different levels
which feed into the constitution of narrative and its reception. Like all
cognitive approaches, this model is grounded in the real-world frames
of everyday experience and is reader- rather than production-oriented
(Alber 2005).
The question of mediacy in narrative fiction has also been examined
by Walsh, who argues quite provocatively that “the narrator is always
either a character who narrates, or the author” (2007: 78). For him, “ex­
tradiegetic heterodiegetic narrators […], who cannot be represented
without thereby being rendered homodiegetic or intradiegetic, are in no
way distinguishable from authors” (84). Walsh suggests eradicating
both “impersonal” and “authorial” narrators. While the first case aligns
with Stanzel’s illusion of immediacy, the second differs radically from
Stanzel’s distinction between → authors and authorial narrators. Walsh
maintains that the only way to account for the knowledge of an authori­
al narrator would be to take quite literally the figurative concept of om­
niscient narration: “in order to know rather than imagine, the (evidently
superhuman) agent of narration must indeed have such power, or some
lesser or intermittent version of it” (73). Thus, omniscience is not a fac­
ulty possessed by a certain class of narrators, but a quality of the au­
thor’s imagination. While some theoreticians infer from this an → im­
plied author (“an ideal, literary, created version of the real man”
[Booth (1961) 1983: 75]) as the mediating agent of narrative, Walsh
speaks of “the author,” stating that “our idea of the author of a written
183 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation

narrative is no more than an interpretation” (2007: 84). Two things are

worth noting here. First, the difference between Booth’s implied author
and Walsh’s interpretation of the author is of course minimal or non-
existent. Second, why should it be problematic to argue that third-per­
son narrators can occasionally have “supernatural” (Ryan 1991: 67) or
“unnatural” (Cohn 1999: 106) powers?

3.4 Mediacy and Narrative Media

As pointed out in Nünning & Nünning (2002) and Wolf (2002), the
definition of narrativity in reference to experientiality and the exten­
sion of mediacy to include an open list of cognitive frames, scripts, and
schemata lead in the direction of transmedial and transgeneric narra­
tology, as proposed in Fludernik (1996; → narration in poetry and
drama; → narration in various media). Many forays have recently been
made into the area of narratological approaches to film, hypertext nar­
rative, ballet, comic strips, drama, poetry, even painting and music
(Ryan 2006, ed. 2004; Wolf 2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2004; Nünning &
Nünning 2002). In this area, Chatman (1978, 1990) was an important
innovator, for it was he who staked out a place for film in narratology
(→ narration in film) and who also confronted narrative with other
text-types, putting the concept of narrative under a new light.
Chatman sees narrative transmission as media-related, and he there­
fore dissociates narrativity from the figure of a human narrator (1990:
116; cf. Ryan 2001, 2006). Although he reintroduces a so-called “cine­
matic narrator” for film, this figure is not a human or human-like nar­
rator as in novels. Rather, the term denotes “the organizational and
sending agency” (1990: 127) behind the film and fulfills a neutral or
covert shower or arranger function. The notion is similar to what Jahn
calls the “filmic composition device (FCD),” which refers to “the the­
oretical agency behind a film’s organization and arrangement” (2003:
F4.1). Even so, the question of who (or what) mediates a film as a
whole remains highly disputed. Bordwell, for one, argues that film has
narration but no narrator, and that consequently cinematic narration is
created by the viewer (1985: 61). On the other hand, Lothe (like Chat­
man) posits a cinematic or film narrator as “the superordinate ‘in­
stance’ that presents all the means of communication that film has at its
disposal” (2000: 30). And finally, theoreticians such as Gaut speak of
an “implied filmmaker” who mediates the film (2004: 248). From the
perspective of natural narratology, one can alternatively argue that film
resorts more generally to the “viewing” frame than to the “telling,” “re­
flecting,” or “experiencing” frame.
 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation 184

Like experimental literary narratives (Alber forthcoming), new me­

dia such as hypertext narratives or computer games require the intro­
duction of new cognitive frames into the model proposed by Fludernik.
From this perspective, mediacy does not refer to mediating through a
(narrator’s) discourse, but mediation through consciousness. More spe­
cifically, we can gain access to these new media through the identifica­
tion of consciousness. The verbal medium of a teller/narrator is only
one possibility among many others; cognitive frames such as viewing,
observing, experiencing, and reflecting (and maybe others) also play an
important role.
However, some of the media that have come into focus since the
turn towards transmedial narratology are hard to analyze on the basis of
narratological categories. As shown by Wolf (2002), paintings and mu­
sic can only occasionally be narrativized. These aesthetic products lack
crucial elements of experientiality in what they are able to represent
(most types of music are perhaps not able to represent anything at all).
With poetry, the situation is more vexed. On the one hand, there is nar­
rative poetry (the epic, the ballad), a genre much neglected by narrative
theory. On the other hand, many lyric poems exist that are also read­
able as narratives or contain narrative elements (Fludernik 1996: 304–
10; Hühn 2002, 2005; Hühn & Schönert 2002; Müller-Zettelmann
2002, forthcoming; Schönert et al. 2007). All types of poetry (narrative
and lyric) are mediated by a speaker. The lyric persona also clearly op­
erates as a mediator on the “reflecting” frame. However, this does of
course not turn lyric poetry into a narrative genre. Lyric poetry does
not typically evoke experientiality, i.e. temporal and spatial parameters,
and thus lacks the situatedness of narrative. In prototypical cases of ly-
ric poetry, we are confronted with the musings of a disembodied voice
about feelings or abstract ideas.
Drama has long been a neglected object of narratological analysis.
Drama was the focus not only of Aristotle’s discussion of mimesis and
has thus become a subtext of all narrative theory, but like epic forms it
is closely bound up with sequentiality and thus invites narratological
analysis. Hence, Pfister (1977) undertakes a narrative analysis of
drama, studying the relationship between story time and discourse
time. Since then, Richardson (1987, 1988, 1991, 2006), Fludernik
(1996, 2008), Jahn (2001), and Nünning & Sommer (2002, 2008) have
started to focus on drama and its relation to narrative. Much of this
work analyzes elements in drama which have to do with mediacy such
as the introduction of teller figures (the Stage Manager in Wilder’s
Our Town), first-person narrators (Henry Carr in Stoppard’s dream
play Travesties), or the fictionalizing of stage directions to include psy­
185 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation

chonarration, puns, or authorial commentary (Fludernik 2008). For the

present purpose, these impositions of a teller figure on the plot level,
the introduction of an extradiegetic frame into the play, or the narrativi-
zation of stage directions are not really relevant due to the fact that the
mediacy of drama is constituted by other factors. Plays partake of the
same stock of cognitive parameters and depend on the same reception
frames as do other narratives. Since plays represent experientiality,
they are narrative, irrespective of narrator figures or additional narra-
tive techniques (such as the use of music). In other words, having a nar­
rating character on stage, for example, is not required to bring plays
within the domain of narrative.
From this perspective, a problem very similar to that of film arises:
what is the discourse level of drama? Here, the dramatic performance
needs to be distinguished from the dramatic text (→ performativity)
(cf. also Jahn 2001: 675). Does one treat only performances as drama
in which performance is the discourse and the script merely the plot
with instructions on how to perform? Or is performance a separate
manifestation of the play and the play script the equivalent of the dra­
matic discourse? If one takes the text as central, it could be argued that
an idealized abstract performance is sketched in it and that a unique
center of origin can be posited for the performance: the text under­
writes a singular “meaning” of the play that one might associate with
“the implied author,” i.e. the real author’s “second self,” which, ac­
cording to Booth, satisfies “the reader’s need to know where, in the
world of values, he stands, that is, to know where the author wants him
to stand” ([1961] 1983: 73). By contrast, if the performance is to be
taken as the only acceptable discourse, there results a collaborative
venture—as in film—for which the term “dramatic composition
device,” in analogy with Jahn’s “filmic composition device” (2003:
F4.1), might be appropriate. Most crucially, assuming performance to
be the basic medium of drama requires taking account of the acoustic,
visual, kinetic, and spatial aspects of a performance within narratolo­
gical description. Jahn in fact argues that plays “are structurally medi­
ated by a first-degree narrative agency which, in a performance may
either take the totally unmetaphorical shape of a vocally and bodily
present narrator figure [...] or remain an anonymous and impersonal
narrative function in charge of selection, arrangement, and focaliza­
tion” (2001: 674). This suggestion is of course reminiscent of Chat­
man’s distinction between overt and covert narrators. If only the script
and a possible performative realization are focused on as the relevant
medium of drama, then kinesis, lighting, and sound would acquire nar­
ratological significance only if they are explicitly grounded in the
 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation 186

script. The performance level in drama is much more complicated than

in film. Filming results in one fixed copy of the narrative, whereas with
plays a variety of productions and different performances within each
production occur, and none of them (unless videotaped) is accessible
except in a viewer’s experience of watching the performance.
It is obvious from these remarks that playscripts are much easier to
handle for narratologists and that they allow a much clearer idea of
how story and discourse are related to one another. Performance poses
quite difficult problems for mediacy. In fact, one could enquire wheth­
er the notion of mediacy might here be an exclusively reception-ori­
ented one. Is the story mediated to the audience through the experience
of the performance? This question indicates that current research on
mediacy has some distinct limits or horizons and that there are numer­
ous matters waiting to be resolved by further research.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) The role of mediacy in drama and film remains open to study: does
it make sense to posit a dramatic or cinematic narrator? Can one argue
that they are mediated by the performance? Or should we assume that
plays and films are mediated by an implied author or filmmaker? Or
are all of these terms dispensable so that we can simply speak of the
author or filmmaker (a larger group of professionals) as mediating in­
stances? (b) One should also address the question of whether we can
follow Walsh’s proposal to dispense with all extra- and heterodiegetic
narrators in novels and short stories. In most cases, it certainly makes
sense to discriminate between the author and the authorial or imperson­
al narrator. (c) It is also necessary to investigate the development of
new cognitive frames of mediation in relation to experimental literary
narratives and new media (hypertext narratives and computer games).

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Alber, Jan (2002). “The ‘Moreness’ or ‘Lessness’ of ‘Natural’ Narratology: Samuel
Beckett’s ‘Lessness’ Reconsidered.” Style 36, 54–75 (reprinted in: Short Story Cri­
ticism 74, 2004, 113–24).
– (2005). “‘Natural’ Narratology.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia of
Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 394–95.
– (forthcoming). “Impossible Storyworlds―And What To Do With Them.” Story­
worlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies 1.
187 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation

Aristotle (2002). On Poetics. Tr. S. Benardete & M. David. South Bend: St. Au­
gustine’s P.
Bal, Mieke ([1985] 1997). Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative.
Toronto: U of Toronto P.
Banfield, Ann (1982). Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the
Language of Fiction. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Blackmur, Richard P. (1934). “Introduction.” H. James. The Art of the Novel: Critical
Prefaces. New York: Scribner’s, vii–xxxix.
Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
Bordwell, David (1985). Narration in the Fiction Film. London: Routledge.
Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
– (1990). Coming To Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca:
Cornell UP.
Cohn, Dorrit (1981). “The Encirclement of Narrative.” Poetics Today 2, 157–82.
– (1990). “Signposts of Fictionality: A Narratological Approach.” Poetics Today 11,
775–804.
– (1999). The Distinction of Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
– (2008). “Narrative and Drama.” J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa (eds). Theorizing Nar­
rativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 355–83.
Friedemann, Käte ([1910] 1965). Die Rolle des Erzählers in der Epik. Darmstadt:
WBG.
Friedman, Norman (1955). “Point of View in Fiction: The Development of a Critical
Concept.” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America
70, 1160–184.
Gaut, Berys (2004). “The Philosophy of the Movies: Cinematic Narration.” P. Kivy
(ed). The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics. Malden: Blackwell, 230–53.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
– ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Hühn, Peter (2002). “Reading Poetry as Narrative: Towards a Narratological Analysis
of Lyric Poems.” Ch. Todenhagen & W. Thiele (eds). Investigations into Narrative
Structures. Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 13–27.
– (2005). “Plotting the Lyric: Forms of Narration in Poetry.” Müller-Zettelmann &
M. Rubik (eds). Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric. Amsterdam: Ro­
dopi, 147–72.
– & Jörg Schönert (2002). “Zur narratologischen Analyse von Lyrik.” Poetica 34,
287–305.
Jahn, Manfred (2001). “Narrative Voice and Agency in Drama: Aspects of a Narrato­
logy of Drama.” New Literary History 32, 659–79.
– (2003). “A Guide to Narratological Film Analysis.”
[www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppf.htm].
James, Henry ([1909] 1934). Preface to The Ambassadors. H. James. The Art of the
Novel: Critical Prefaces. New York: Scribner’s, 307–26.
 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation 188

Lothe, Jakob (2000). Narrative in Fiction and Film: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford
UP.
Lubbock, Percy (1921). The Craft of Fiction. New York: Scribner.
Müller-Zettelmann, Eva (2002). “Lyrik und Narratologie.” V. Nünning & A. Nünning
(eds). Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär. Trier: WVT,
129–53.
– (forthcoming). “Poetry and Narratology.” M. Fludernik & G. Olson (eds). Current
Trends in Narratology. Proceedings International Colloquium, Freiburg June 2007.
Nünning, Ansgar & Roy Sommer (2002). “Drama und Narratologie: Die Entwicklung
erzähltheoretischer Modelle und Kategorien für die Dramenanalyse.” V. Nünning
& A. Nünning (eds). Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär.
Trier: WVT, 105–28.
– (2008). “Diegetic and Mimetic Narrativity. Some Further Steps Towards a Narrato­
logy of Drama.” J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa (eds). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin:
de Gruyter, 331–54.
Nünning, Vera & Ansgar Nünning (2002). “Produktive Grenzüberschreitungen: Trans­
generische, intermediale und interdisziplinäre Ansätze in der Erzähltheorie.” V.
Nünning & A. Nünning (eds). Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdis-
ziplinär. Trier: WVT, 1–22.
Pfister, Manfred ([1977] 1988). The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Cambridge: Cam­
bridge UP.
Plato (1937). The Republic. Tr. P. Shorey. Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library.
Prince, Gerald ([1987] 2003). A Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Richardson, Brian (1987). “Time is Out of Joint: Narrative Models and the Temporality
of the Drama.” Poetics Today 8, 299–310.
– (1988). “Point of View in Drama: Diegetic Monologue, Unreliable Narrators, and
the Author’s Voice on Stage.” Comparative Drama 22, 193–214.
– (1991). “Pinter’s Landscape and the Boundaries of Narrative.” Essays in Literature
18, 37–45.
– (2006). Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Postmodern Contem­
porary Fiction. Columbus: Ohio State UP.
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics.
London: Methuen.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
– (2001). “The Narratorial Functions: Breaking Down a Theoretical Primitive.” Nar­
rative 9, 146–42.
– (2006). Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
– ed. (2004). Narrative across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U
Nebraska P.
Schaeffer, Jean-Marie & Ioana Vultur (2005). “Mimesis.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Rout­
ledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 309–10.
Schmid, Wolf (1968). “Zur Erzähltechnik und Bewusstseinstechnik in Dostoevskijs
‘Večnyj muž’.” Die Welt der Slaven 13, 294–306.
– (1982) “Die narrativen Ebenen ‘Geschehen,’ ‘Geschichte,’ ‘Erzählung’ und
‘Präsentation der Erzählung.’” Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 9, 83–110.
189 Mediacy and Narrative Mediation

Schönert, Jörg, et al. (2007). Lyrik und Narratologie: Text-Analysen zu deutschspra-

chigen Gedichten vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Souriau, Etienne (1951). “La structure de l’univers filmique et le vocabulaire de la
filmologie.” Revue internationale de filmologie 7/8, 231–40.
Spielhagen, Friedrich ([1883] 1967). Beiträge zur Theorie und Technik des Romans.
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Stanzel, Franz K. ([1955] 1971). Narrative Situations in the Novel: Tom Jones, Moby
Dick, The Ambassadors, Ulysses. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
– ([1979] 1984). A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Uspenskij, Boris (Uspensky) (1973). A Poetics of Composition: The Structure of the
Artistic Text and Typology of a Compositional Form. Berkley: U of California P.
Walsh, Richard (2007). The Rhetoric of Fictionality: Narrative Theory and the Idea of
Fiction. Columbus: Ohio State UP.
Wolf, Werner (2002). “Das Problem der Narrativität in Literatur, bildender Kunst und
Musik: Ein Beitrag zu einer intermedialen Erzähltheorie.” V. Nünning & A. Nün­
ning (eds). Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär. Trier: WVT,
23–104.
– (2003a). “The Lyric—an Elusive Genre. Problems of Definition and a Proposal for
Reconceptualization.” Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 28, 59–91.
– (2003b). “Narrative and Narrativity: A Narratological Reconceptualization and its
Applicability to the Visual Arts.” Word &Image 19, 180–97.
– (2004). “‘Cross the Border—Close that Gap’: Towards an Intermedial Narrato­
logy.” European Journal of English Studies 8, 81–103.

5.2 Further Reading

Jahn, Manfred (2005). “Mediacy.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia of
Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 292–93.
Stivers, David (2007). “Witnessing the Invisible: Narrative Mediation in The Princess
Casamassima.” The Henry James Review 28, 159–73.
 Metalepsis
John Pier

1 Definition

In its narratological sense, metalepsis, first identified by Genette, is a

paradoxical contamination between the world of the telling and the
world of the told: “any intrusion by the extradiegetic narrator or nar­
ratee into the diegetic universe (or by diegetic characters into a meta-
diegetic universe, etc.), or the inverse […]” ([1972] 1980: 234–35).
Described as “taking hold of (telling) by changing level” (235 n. 51)
and thus combining the principle of → narrative levels with the rhetori-
cal figure of metalepsis originating in ancient legal discourse, narrative
metalepsis is a “deliberate transgression of the threshold of embed-
ding” resulting in “intrusions [that] disturb, to say the least, the distinc­
tion between levels.” It produces an effect of “humor” or of “the fan-
tastic” or “some mixture of the two […], unless it functions as a figure
of the creative imagination […]” (Genette [1983] 1988: 88). Genette
(2004) also argues that not only is metalepsis a violation of the separa­
tion between syntactically defined levels, but also a deviant referential
operation, a violation of semantic thresholds of representation that in­
volves the beholder in an ontological transgression of universes and
points toward a theory of fiction (→ fictional vs. factual narration).
More is at issue, then, than localized rhetorical or stylistic devices,
for metalepsis has been characterized as “undermining the separation
between narration and story” (Rimmon-Kenan [1983] 2002: 93), as a
“strange loop” (Hofstadter 1979) in the structure of narrative levels or
a “short circuit” between the “fictional world and the ontological level
occupied by the author” (McHale 1987: 119, 213), as a “narrative short
circuit” causing “a sudden collapse of the narrative system” (Wolf
1993: 356–58), as producing a “disruptive effect on the fabric of nar­
rative” (Malina 2002: 1), etc. Unlike factual narrative, moreover, fic­
tional narrative betrays “at least the potential for narrative metalepsis”
(Nelles 1997: 152). Such considerations raise not only the question of
the metatextual status of metalepsis (→ metanarration and metafiction)
and that of rhetorical as opposed to ontological metalepsis together
191 Metalepsis

with an array of topics bearing on transmediality (→ narration in vari­

ous media) and transdisciplinarity (→ narration in various disciplines),
but they also suggest that fictional narrative is by nature metaleptic,
bound to the paradox of “a current presentation of the past” (Bessière
2005), or that “[a]ll fictions are woven through with metalepses”
(Genette 2004: 131).

2 Explication

Narrative metalepsis as a concept results from the convergence of rhet­

oric (placing it alongside metaphor and metonymy as tropes of trans­
formation, substitution and succession) and the principle of narrative
levels. Genette ([1972] 1980: 232–34) explains that metadiegetic (or
second-degree) narrative bears either an explanatory, a thematic or an
enunciative (rather than content-based) relation to the primary narra-
tive, and it is under the latter that his comments on metalepsis are in­
cluded, emphasizing “a shifting but sacred frontier between two
worlds, the world in which one tells, the world of which one tells”
(236). Essentially, metalepsis functions with varying dosages of three
parameters: (a) illusion of contemporaneousness between the time of
the telling and the time of the told (→ illusion); (b) transgressive merg-
ing of two or more levels; (c) doubling of the narrator/narratee axis
with the author/reader axis. These features are illustrated by Balzac’s
“While the venerable churchman climbs the ramps of Angoulême, it is
not useless to explain…”—a “minimal” metalepsis (cf. Pier 2005: 249–
50) which, being incipiently transgressive, leaps the boundary between
→ narrator and extradiegetic narratee on the communicative plane and
puts story time on hold while the narrator intervenes with a metanarra-
tive comment, demonstrating the latent metaleptic quality of narrative
embedding in general.

2.1 Rhetorical vs. Ontological Metalepsis

Genette’s remarks, though concise, stake out the key features of meta­
lepsis, one of the least debated of his theoretical innovations for many
years. It is with subsequent and more differentiated developments that
the scope and import of this narrative practice that goes against the
grain of codified narratological categories has come to be more fully
appreciated. Following a proposal by Ryan (2005, 2006: 204–30, 246–
48), it is now widely acknowledged that metalepsis breaks down into a
rhetorical (Genette) and an ontological variety (McHale), parallel to
the distinction between illocutionary boundary at discourse level and
 Metalepsis 192

ontological boundary at story level. “Rhetorical metalepsis,” Ryan

claims, “opens a small window that allows a quick glance across levels,
but the window closes after a few sentences, and the operation ends up
reasserting the existence of the boundaries” (2006: 207). It has been
shown by Fludernik, however, that Genette’s narrative metalepsis is in
effect an umbrella term containing an implicit typology that integrates
Ryan’s distinction (Fludernik 2003: 382–89): (a) authorial metalepsis
(Virgil “has Dido die”): a metafictional strategy that undermines mi­
metic illusion, foregrounding the inventedness of the story; (b) narra-
torial or type 1 ontological metalepsis (in Eliot’s Adam Bede, the nar­
rator invites the narratee to accompany him to Reverend Irwine’s
study): transgression from the extradiegetic to the intradiegetic level is
illusionary, drawing a fine line between the reader’s immersion and
lifting of the mimetic illusion; (c) lectorial or type 2 ontological meta­
lepsis (in a story by Cortázar, the reader of a novel is [almost] killed by
a character in that novel): implication of the narratee on the story level
or passage of a character from an embedded to an embedding level
(also occurs in second-person narration); (d) rhetorical or discourse
metalepsis (the Balzac example above).
Given the fluid transitions between these types, it can be seen that
the more pronounced forms of metalepsis are contained embryonically
in the fourth variety, suggesting that rhetorical metalepsis covers all
four—whence the present author’s proposal to rename Fludernik’s and
Ryan’s rhetorical metalepsis “minimal” metalepsis. Rather than two
distinct types of metalepsis—one rhetorical, the other ontological—
what is at stake are the forms and degrees of violation of the boundary
between the telling and the told, two aspects of the effects of narrative
discourse and, more generally, the role such violations play in artistic
representation (cf. Häsner 2001: 40–3 on the “accentuation” of meta­
leptic relations).

2.2 From Figure to Fiction

Genette’s rhetorical theory of metalepsis highlights the relation be-

tween “figural” and “fictional” metalepsis. Both “figure” and “fiction”
derive from the Latin fingere (to fashion, represent, feign, invent), such
that a figure of substitution (i.e. a trope such as metaphor, metonymy,
litote, etc.) forms the “embryo” or “outline” (esquisse) of a fiction
(Genette 2004: 16–8). With emphasis on authorial metalepsis as a par­
ticular type of metonymy in which cause is expressed for effect or ef­
fect for cause and on the figural and fictional transgressions this en­
tails, a fiction, taking form in the passage between figure as a formal
193 Metalepsis

but semantically weak verbal schema and figure as a transfer of mean­

ing, is defined as “a figure taken literally and treated as an actual
event” (20). In contrast to narrative considered as the “expansion” of a
verb (cf. Genette [1972] 1980: 30), fiction can be regarded as a figure
taken à la lettre, and in the case of metalepsis “fictively literalized,” it
introduces into narratology the problem of ontological transgression in
representation. The focus falls no longer on metalepsis as a narrative
category forming a system with other describable categories (prolepsis,
analepsis, etc.), but on the functioning of representation and the inter­
section of narrative and fiction. Called into question is the Coleridgean
“willing suspension of disbelief,” triggering “a playful simulation of
belief,” as in the fantastic or the marvelous mode (Genette 2004: 23,
25): with metalepsis, it is the reader’s belief, not disbelief, that is sus­
pended, setting up a reading contract based not on verisimilitude, but
on “a shared knowledge of illusion” (Baron 2005: 298; cf. Macé 2007).
In effect, the rhetorical and the ontological conceptions may repre-
sent not so much two types of metalepsis as they point to the two main
approaches to the phenomenon, the one based primarily in the (rhetori-
cal) effects produced by representation through discourse or other se­
miotic means, the other in the problems of logical paradox encountered
by modern science. This can in fact be seen in the partially overlapping
concerns of the two orientations. Ryan (2005: 205 n. 3) notes that
Genette’s discussion bears on the two types without differentiating
them, and also that “figural” and “fictional” metalepsis correspond
roughly to “rhetorical” and “ontological” metalepsis (2006: 247 n. 3).
It is useful to bear in mind, however, that for Genette fiction is ad­
dressed in rhetorical and pragmatic terms, while the ontological ap­
proach takes the transdisciplinary ramifications of scientific logic as its
reference point.

2.3 Metaleptic Affinities

Originating in rhetoric, later to be integrated into narrative theory,

metalepsis is now seen as a more widespread phenomenon than ini­
tially thought and also to have affinities that vary according to different
factors. Thus metalepsis, being paradoxical, is more likely to be culti-
vated by the baroque, by romanticism or by certain types of modernism
than by mimetically inclined classicism or realism, much as it shows a
greater propensity for the comic and the ironic than it does for the tra­
gic or the lyric (cf. Pier & Schaeffer 2005: 10–1; Grabe et al. eds.
2006). Furthermore, being restricted by neither genre nor media, meta­
lepsis is manifested in various ways and to different degrees: the thea-
 Metalepsis 194

ter arts, thanks to the possibilities of audience participation, are meta­

lepsis-friendly; the cinema, with its technical capacity for hypotyposis
(what is presented is depicted as though it were before one’s very
eyes), can be highly metaleptic, contrary to music, suggesting that
metalepsis is bound to the question of representation; the pictorial arts,
as demonstrated by the works of Escher and Magritte, possess consid­
erable metaleptic potential, but this is not the case of sculpture, where
boundaries between levels are more difficult to define; digital media,
with their capacity for generating virtual realities, are fertile terrain for
ontological transgressions. And finally, metalepsis is not restricted to
high culture, since it is freely resorted to in popular culture, as wit­
nessed by reality TV or by unscripted spectator interventions at sport­
ing events.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

It is important to bear in mind that although narrative metalepsis is a

recent concept in the history of poetics, the practice itself, under differ­
ent denominations or none at all, extends back to antiquity. The fact
that as a concept it can now be theorized and applied according to
definable criteria casts a new light on the theory and analysis of narra-
tive and, more generally, on representation as a cultural phenomenon.

3.1 The Historical Background

3.1.1 Rhetoric
The etymology of metalepsis is disputed, but its sense can readily be
grasped from the word’s Latin equivalent—transumptio: “assuming
one thing for another.” Metalepsis has a complex history in that it has
been regarded either as a variety of metonymy, a particular form of
synonymy, or both. As metonymy, it has been identified: (a) in simple
form, or expression of the consequent understood as the precedent or
vice versa and; (b) as a chain of associations (“a few ears of corn” for
“a few years,” the transfer of sense implying “a few harvests” and “a
few summers”). Metalepsis can also be understood in Quintilian’s
sense as the intermediate step or transition between a term which is
transferred and the thing to which it is transferred, resulting in an inap­
propriate synonym (Morier 1961; Burkhardt 2001; Meyer-Minnemann
2005: 140–43; Roussin 2005: 40–4; on metalepsis and evidentia, see
Häsner 2001: 20–7; Cornils 2005).
195 Metalepsis

From the perspective of narrative theory, two positions derive from

the rhetoric of metalepsis. Firstly, Genette (2004: 7–16), drawing on
the first two types above, notes that metalepsis shares with metaphor
and metonymy the principle of transfer of sense and considers it (fol­
lowing Dumarsais) a metonymy of the simple type; he then expands it
(with Fontanier) beyond the single word to include an entire proposi­
tion. Metalepsis, he argues, combines cause for effect or effect for
cause with substitution of an indirect for a direct expression. He points
out the importance, in narrative, of authorial metalepsis, by which an
author “is represented or represents himself as producing what, in the
final analysis, he only relates” (Fontanier). He draws attention to the
proximity for the two rhetoricians of metalepsis and hypotyposis (a fig­
ure in which the copy is treated, illusorily, as though it were the origin­
al), but particularly to the fact that with metalepsis, the author pretends
to intervene in a story which is in fact a representation, so that trans­
gression of the threshold of embedding merges with that of the
threshold of representation, affirming the existence of the very bound­
aries that are effaced.
There have also been proposals to refer narrative metalepsis back to
metalepsis as use of an inappropriate synonym, notably by Meyer-Min­
nemann (2005) and Schlickers (2005) (see also Nelles 1997: 152–57).
The emphasis here is not on authorial metalepsis as a type of me-
tonymy, but on the paradoxical transgression of boundaries, of which
there are two main types: one at discourse level with breaching of the
“me-here-now” of enunciation (in verbis transgression), the other at
story level with violation of the coordinates of the enunciate (in cor­
pore transgression). Taking a cue from Genette, this model provides for
metalepsis of enunciation and metalepsis of the enunciate in which
each functions either vertically (bottom-up or top-down) or horizon-
tally, i.e. without change of level (dubbed “perilepsis” by Prince 2006:
628). To take only a few illustrations: (a) a vertical metalepsis of enun­
ciation (top-down) would be the Balzac example cited above; (b) a ho­
rizontal metalepsis of enunciation occurs with the juxtaposition of two
communicative situations at the same level; (c) with transgression of
the diegetic, ontological, spatial or temporal order, there occurs a ver­
tical metalepsis of the enunciate; (d) a horizontal metalepsis of the
enunciate is produced when e.g. Woody Allen enters the world of Ma­
dame Bovary. In this system, metalepsis is seen as producing an effect
of strangeness, either comical or fantastic, but it is not regarded as a
figure of fictionality in Genette’s sense (on the fictionality of paradox­
ical narration, however, see Meyer-Minnemann 2006).
 Metalepsis 196

3.1.2 Logical Paradox

For narrative metalepsis in an ontological perspective, paradox is cen-
tral, as it involves the logically inconsistent passage between two sepa-
rate domains through suspension of the excluded middle. At issue is
the problem, originating in logic and mathematics, of maintaining dis­
tinct levels through avoidance of self-reference by elaborating meta-
levels, an endeavor that requires the addition of recursive meta-levels
ad infinitum. The inevitable paradox is captured by Gödel’s theorem,
although it has long plagued scientific thought in the form of the liar’s
paradox (Epimenides is a Cretan and says “All Cretans are liars”); it is
also conveyed visually by the Möbius strip, Klein’s bottle and Escher’s
drawings. Hofstadter (1979) has examined various manifestations of
this paradox in his important transdisciplinary study, even providing a
recursive dialogue (103–26) that illustrates the problem of metalepsis,
although the term appears nowhere in the book.
McHale has integrated these paradoxes into the poetics of postmod­
ernist fiction, a type of writing that “foregrounds ontological issues of
text and world” (1987: 27). Adopting an ontology taken from possible
worlds theory (33–6), he recasts Genette’s narrative levels in terms of
ontological levels so that a metalepsis produced by violation of levels
raises ontological considerations resulting from recursive embedding
(120). In particular, McHale identifies metalepsis with the “Strange
Loop,” a phenomenon that occurs “whenever, by moving upwards (or
downwards) through the levels of some hierarchical system, we unex­
pectedly find ourselves right back where we started.” Strange Loops
occur within a “Tangled Hierarchy”: “when what you presume are
clean hierarchical levels take you by surprise and fold back in a hier­
archy-violating way” (Hofstadter 1979: 10, 691; qtd. in McHale 1987:
119). He also draws attention to the metaleptic function of the second-
person pronoun (223–25), as does Genette (2004: 96–9; cf. Fludernik’s
2003: 389 lectorial or type 2 ontological metalepsis); but he does not
distinguish between rhetorical and ontological metalepsis, nor does
Wolf (2005b), whose definition of metalepsis combines ontology with
possible worlds theory (93).
A particular capacity for generating feedback loops and hierarchies
of levels is demonstrated by the computer, dubbed “metaleptic ma­
chine” by Ryan. A case in point is the “Metalepticon,” a computer al­
gorithm designed by Meister (2005) to reproduce the recursive struc­
tures of Escher’s Drawing Hands: here, however, computational
powers are quickly exhausted and “Program Space Full/looping error”
is displayed. Meister concludes from this unrealizable abstract formal
model that metalepsis annuls the “contract of representation” required
197 Metalepsis

for the cognitive and hermeneutic processing of esthetically incarnated

metalepses (245–46). Also related to issues of communication is meta­
lepsis as a virtual reality (possibility for the beholder to physically
enter the imagined world) and as an existential phenomenon (Emma
Bovary modeling her life after the heroine of a sentimental novel)
(Ryan 2006: 227). On the other hand, the recursive chain is broken
when it is recognized, for example, that the creator of Drawing Hands
occupies a space outside the representation in question, even though
that creator can in turn be portrayed in a (meta-) representation (cf.
“Authorship Triangle”; Hofstadter 1979: 94–95, 688–89)—a situation
not unlike that of authorial metalepsis.

3.2 Typologies

As seen in 2.1 and 2.2 above, Genette’s original conception of narra-

tive metalepsis hinted at a typology without actually proposing one.
Since then, a number of typologies have been elaborated, a survey of
which reveals that to varying degrees theories of metalepsis discrimi-
nate between minimally and conspicuously transgressive changes of
level. Ontological approaches tend to focus on the latter while rhetori-
cal approaches also take account of the metaleptic potential of e.g. the
apostrophic “gentle reader.”
Nelles (1997: 152–57), referring narrative metalepsis back to me-
tonymy as trope (Quintilian), differentiates “unmarked” (at discourse
level) from “distinctly marked” (at story level) metalepsis and, for the
latter, “intrametalepsis” (movement from the embedding to the embed­
ded level) from “extrametalepsis” (movement in the opposite direc-
tion), subdividing each type into analeptic and proleptic forms on the
temporal plane (on “inward” vs. “outward” metalepses, see Malina
2002: 46–50). The degree of transgression—knowledge of the other
world as opposed to physically penetrating it—is characterized as
either epistemological (verbal) or ontological (modal). According to
Pier (2005: 253), there is a tendency in intrametaleptic movements to
favor the narrator/narratee relation, and in extrametaleptic movements
the character/narrator relation.
Wagner (2002: 243–48), for whom the metatextual nature of meta­
lepsis signals the constructedness of narrative along the lines of the
Russian formalist notion of “defamiliarization,” emphasizes the revers­
ibility of metaleptic displacements between extra-, intra- and metadie­
getic levels. He also draws attention to circulation, at a given level,
between collateral fictive universes, not unlike the “horizontal” meta­
lepses included in the Meyer-Minnemann/Schlickers model. And fi­
 Metalepsis 198

nally, Wagner takes up the question, largely neglected, of the composi­

tional distribution of metalepses: their location, amplitude and fre­
quency can have a significant impact on the strategy and readability of
a narrative (cf. Häsner 2001: 40–3).
Defamiliarization and composition point to the Russian formalists’
use of metalepsis, although the term was not employed by them. At is­
sue was neither a rhetorical figure nor an ontological paradox or a ty­
pology of its use, but “laying bear the device”: the deliberate distortion
of form aimed at highlighting the artificial relations between “form”
and “materials,” between sujet and fabula, and the fact the art is
“made” of devices. As shown in particular by Šklovskij (1921) in his
essay on Tristram Shandy, the numerous digressions, etc. “lay bare”
the relations between the time of the telling and the time of the told,
thus conflating narration and action in a seemingly unmotivated way
and drawing attention to the idea that form, not the world, is the con­
tent of the novel (cf. Schmid 2005).
Herman (1997: 133–36) analyzes metalepsis firstly by identifying
the textual markers that, in the formal sense, signal “illicit movements
up or down the hierarchy of diegetic levels structuring narrative dis­
course” and, from the functional perspective, “transgression of the on­
tological boundaries.” In terms of possible worlds theory, metalepsis
solicits temporary entry of the reader into a re-centered modal system.
Since, in this account, metalepsis abolishes the distinction between
storyworld and the world(s) from which addressees relocate, Herman
adopts Goffman’s concept of frame analysis as a set of expectations
about narrative universes in place of diegetic level.
Wolf, considering the forms of disturbance of mimetic illusion
caused by the failure to observe ontological boundaries, sets the mixing
of extra-fictional reality with textually produced fiction off from viola­
tions of levels in inner-fictional boundaries (1993: 349–72). The latter,
metalepses, are a metafictional technique characterized as a “narrative
short circuit” and are likened to Hofstadter’s (1979: 134 passim) “het­
erarchy,” a structure distinct from hierarchy in that it possesses no
single “highest level” (cf. McHale 1987: 120). Metalepsis occurs (a)
between the extradiegetic and the intradiegetic levels or (b) between
the intradiegetic and one or more hypodiegetic (metadiegetic) levels
(on “exterior” vs. ”interior” metalepsis, see Cohn 2005). Both (a),
marked by punctual violations of levels by characters and/or their
words, and (b), punctual short circuits between intradiegetic “reality”
and “fiction,” are found in minimal and conspicuous forms and can
take place either bottom-up or top-down. In its complex form, metalep­
sis combines the previous two types, setting in motion a recurrent con­
199 Metalepsis

tamination of levels, as in the Möbius strip, and whose effects are dis­
tributed throughout a given narrative.
Where the above typologies can be grouped under the heading
“meta-,” situating metalepsis on the same conceptual plane as metanar­
rative, metadiegesis, etc., another typology, the most elaborate to date,
is built up around the suffix “-lepsis” in the sense of “action of taking”
(Lang 2006; cf. Meyer-Minnemann 2006). Narration is paradoxical
when, in violation of the principle “either one or the other” (cf. the
liar’s paradox), → coherence is undermined. On this basis, Lang pro-
vides a typology of paradoxical narration divided into devices that can­
cel out boundaries (syllepsis, epanalepsis, the latter term designating
specular devices including the mise en abyme) and those that trans­
gress boundaries (metalepsis, hyperlepsis, the latter equivalent to Ge-
nette’s pseudodiegesis: a metadiegetic narrative presented as though it
were diegetic). As in the Meyer-Minnemann/Schlickers typology, each
of these devices is analyzed into vertical (bottom-up or top-down) and
horizontal relations of discourse and story, respectively. In contrast to
the other models presented, this typology includes metalepsis among
other forms of paradoxical narration.

3.3 Related Concepts

As shown, inter alia, by Lang’s typology, the scope of paradox-produ­

cing devices is not restricted to metalepsis. Thus the effects of pseudo-
diegesis (or hyperlepsis), also studied under the term trompe l’œil by
McHale (1987: 115–19), can produce “variable realities” as destabiliz­
ing as those of metalepsis. As for mise en abyme, it shares with meta­
lepsis the feature of embedding, but it additionally includes resem-
blance between levels (e.g. a story within a story) and reduplication
and is characterized by reflexivity rather than by transgression of
levels. Only in the case of “aporistic reduplication” (“fragment sup­
posedly including the work in which it is included”; Dällenbach 1977:
51) does mise en abyme coincide with metalepsis (called “pure” mise
en abyme by Cohn 2005: the reader has the impression of belonging to
an infinite series of fictions; cf. McHale 1987: 124–28). And finally,
while metalepsis is generally found within a given text, violating that
text’s system of diegetic levels, infringement of boundaries can also
take place across texts. Such is the case in horizontal metalepsis of
enunciation, studied by Rabau (2005) under the term “heterometalep­
sis,” but it also occurs in horizontal metalepsis of the enunciate, a phe­
nomenon that coincides with “transfictionality” as when, say, Sherlock
Holmes appears in the fictional universe of Madame Bovary (cf. La­
 Metalepsis 200

vocat 2007 on metaleptic and intrametaleptic transfictionality). This di­

mension of metalepsis opens up issues of transtextual relations (cf.
Genette 1982), but it also touches on the numerous implications of
metalepsis for fictionality and metafictionality.

3.4 Metalepsis and Trans-/Intermediality

The violation of levels and boundaries is not limited to narrative, and

while metalepsis in its narrative form was originally studied in verbal
narratives, it is not a media-specific phenomenon. This is confirmed by
a number of contributions in Pier & Schaeffer (eds. 2005) as well as by
Genette (2004), much of which is devoted to metalepsis in theater,
film, television, painting and photography (see also Genette 2009: 176–
80), and Wolf (2005b) which, additionally, looks at comic strips. It
would seem, then, that metalepsis has a significant role to play in trans­
medial narratology (e.g. Ryan 2006: 3–30, ed. 2004) and in intermedi­
ality (e.g. Wolf 2005a), although to date this connection remains
largely unexplored.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

More than a rhetorical flourish, metalepsis raises the question of the

porosity of levels and borders in cultural representations, but not their
dissolution. Originating in structuralist narratology, it calls for re-ex­
amination of the theoretical basis of established models and thus merits
serious consideration in charting out transdisciplinary approaches to
narrative theory. Among topics requiring further study are: (a) relative
weight of local vs. global effects of metalepsis; (b) metalepsis and fic­
tionality (breaking/intensification of mimetic illusion, immersion, etc.);
(c) metalepsis and related practices in historical poetics going back to
biblical narrative as well as a historical inventory of artistic movements
and corpuses employing these devices; (d) the role of metalepsis in
trans-/intramediality with regard in particular to multimedia and popu­
lar culture.
201 Metalepsis

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Baron, Christine (2005). “Effet métaleptique et statut des discours fictionnels.” J. Pier
& J.-M. Schaeffer (eds), 295–310.
Bessière, Jean (2005). “Récit de fiction, transition discursive, présentation actuelle du
récit, ou que le récit de fiction est toujours métaleptique.” J. Pier & J.-M. Schaeffer
(eds), 279–94.
Burkhardt, Arnim (2001). “Metalepsis.” G. Ueding (ed). Historisches Wörterbuch der
Rhetorik. Tübingen: Niemeyer, vol. 5, 1087–99.
Cohn, Dorrit (2005). “Métalepse et mise en abyme.” J. Pier & J.-M. Schaeffer (eds),
121–30.
Cornils, Anja (2005). “La metalepses dans les Actes des Apôtres: un signe de narration
fictionnelle?” J. Pier & J.-M. Schaeffer (eds), 95–107.
Dällenbach, Lucien (1977). Le récit spéculaire. Essai sur la mise en abyme. Paris:
Seuil.
Fludernik, Monika (2003). “Scene Shift, Metalepsis, and the Metaleptic Mode.” Style
37, 382–400 (= “Changement de scène et mode métaleptique.” J. Pier & J.-M.
Schaeffer [eds], 73–94).
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
– ([1982] 1997). Palimpsests. Literature in the Second Degree. Lincoln: U of Neb­
raska P.
– ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
– (2004). Métalepse. De la figure à la fiction. Paris: Seuil.
– (2009). Codicille. Paris: Seuil.
Grabe, Nina, et al. eds. (2006). La narración paradójica. “Normas narrativas” y el
principio de la “transgresión.” Frankfurt a.M.: Vervuert.
Häsner, Bernd (2001). “Metalepsen. Zur Genese, Systematik und Funktion transgressi­
ver Erzählweisen.” PhD Dissertation. Freie Universität Berlin.
Herman, David (1997). “Toward a Formal Description of Narrative Metalepsis.”
Journal of Literary Semantics 26, 132–52.
Hofstadter, Douglas (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. New
York: Basic Books.
Lang, Sabine (2006). “Prolegómenos para una teoría de la narración paradójica.”
N. Grabe et al. (eds). La narración paradójica. “Normas narrativas” y el principio
de la “transgresión.” Frankfurt a.M.: Vervuert, 21–47.
Lavocat, Françoise (2007). “Transfictionalité, métafiction et métalepse aux XVIe et XVIIe
siècles.” R. Audet & R. Saint-Gelais (eds). La fiction, suites et variations. Quebec:
Nota bene; Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 157–78.
Macé, Marielle (2007). “Une lecture de Métalepse, Gérard Genette.” Conference “De la
figure à la fiction – autour d’un livre.” http://www.fabula.org/atelier.php.
Malina, Debra (2002). Breaking the Frame: Metalepsis and the Construction of the
Subject. Columbus: Ohio State UP.
McHale, Brian (1987). Postmodernist Fiction. London: Methuen.
 Metalepsis 202

Meister, Jan Christoph (2005). “Le Metalepticon: une étude informatique de la méta­
lepse.” J. Pier & J.-M. Schaeffer (eds), 225–46.
Meyer-Minnemann, Klaus (2005). “Un procédé narratif qui ‘produit un effet de bizar­
rerie’: la métalepse littéraire.” J. Pier & J.-M. Schaeffer (eds), 133–50.
– (2006). “Narración paradójica y ficción.” N. Grabe et al. (eds). La narración
paradójica. “Normas narrativas” y el principio de la “transgresión.” Frankfurt
a.M.: Vervuert, 49–71.
Morier, Henri (1961). “Métalepse.” Dictionnaire de poétique et de rhétorique. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 673–76.
Nelles, William (1997). Frameworks: Narrative Levels and Embedded Narratives. New
York: Lang.
Pier, John (2005). “Métalepse et hiérarchies narratives.” J. Pier & J.-M. Schaeffer (eds),
247–61.
– & Jean-Marie Schaeffer (2005). “Introduction. La métalepse, aujourd’hui.” J. Pier
& J.-M. Schaeffer (eds), 7–15.
– eds. (2005). Métalepses. Entorses au pacte de la représentation. Paris: Éd. de
l’EHESS.
Prince, Gerald (2006). “Disturbing Frames.” Poetics Today 27, 625–30.
Rabau, Sophie (2005). “Ulysse à côté d’Homère. Interprétation et transgression des
frontières énonciatives.” Pier & Schaeffer (eds), 59–72.
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics.
London: Routledge.
Roussin, Philippe (2005). “Rhétorique de la métalepse, états de cause, typologie, récit.”
J. Pier & J.-M Schaeffer (eds), 37–58.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (2005). “Logique culturelle de la métalepse, ou la métalepse dans
tous ses états.” J. Pier & J.-M. Schaeffer (eds), 201–23.
– (2006). Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
– ed. (2004). Narrative across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U of
Nebraska P.
Schlickers, Sabine (2005). “Inversions, transgressions, paradoxes et bizzareries. La
métalepse dans les littératures espagnole et française.” J. Pier & J.-M. Schaeffer
(eds), 151–66.
Schmid, Wolf (2005). “La métalepse narrative dans la construction du formalisme
russe.” J. Pier & J.-M. Schaeffer (eds), 189–95.
Šklovskij, Viktor (Shklovsky, Victor) ([1921] 1990). “The Novel as Parody: Sterne’s
Tristram Shandy.” V. Š. Theory of Prose. Elmwood Park: Dalkey Archive P, 148–
71.
Wagner, Frank (2002). “Glissements et déphasages: note sur la métalepse narrative.”
Poétique 33, No 130, 235–53.
Wolf, Werner (1993). Ästhetische Illusion und Illusionsdurchbrechung in der Erzähl­
kunst: Theorie und Geschichte mit Schwerpunkt auf englischem illusionsstörenden
Erzählen. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
– (2005a). “Intermediality.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia of Nar­
rative Theory. London: Routledge, 252–56.
203 Metalepsis

– (2005b). “Metalepsis as a Transgeneric and Transmedial Phenomenon: A Case

Study of the Possibilities of ‘Exporting’ Narratological Concepts.” J. Ch. Meister
(ed). Narratology beyond Literary Criticism: Mediality, Disciplinarity. Berlin: de
Gruyter, 83–107.

5.2 Further Reading

Lodge, David (1977). The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the
Typology of Modern Literature. London: Arnold, esp. 239–45.
Pier, John (2005). “Metalepsis.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia of
Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 303–04.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: Indian UP, esp. chap. 9.
– (2005). “On the Theoretical Foundations of Transmedial Narratology.” J. Ch.
Meister (ed). Narratology beyond Literary Criticism: Mediality, Disciplinarity.
Berlin: de Gruyter, 1–23.
Saint-Gelais, Richard (2001). “La fiction à travers l’intertexte: pour une théorie de la
transfictionnalité.” A. Gefen & R. Audet (eds). Frontières de la fiction. Quebec:
Nota bene; Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 43–75.
 Metanarration and Metafiction
Birgit Neumann & Ansgar Nünning

1 Definition

Metanarration and metafiction are umbrella terms designating self-re­

flexive utterances, i.e. comments referring to the discourse rather than
to the story. Although they are related and often used interchangeably,
the terms should be distinguished: metanarration refers to the narrator’s
reflections on the act or process of narration; metafiction concerns
comments on the fictionality and/or constructedness of the narrative.
Thus, whereas metafictionality designates the quality of disclosing the
fictionality of a narrative, metanarration captures those forms of self-
reflexive narration in which aspects of narration are addressed in the
narratorial discourse, i.e. narrative utterances about narrative rather
than fiction about fiction.

2 Explication

The terms “metanarration” and “metafiction” are both based on the

model of metalanguage, which designates a (system of) language posi­
tioned on a level above the ordinary use of words for referential pur­
pose (Fludernik 2003: 15). Metanarration and metafiction therefore
have one point in common, namely their self-reflexive or self-refer­
ential character. However, these two types of narrative self-reflexivity
differ greatly, and this difference has tended to be ignored in most ex­
isting typologies. Therefore, the widely-used umbrella term metafiction
not only needs to be elaborated, but a clear distinction also has to be
made between metanarration and other forms of self-reflexive narra­
tion.
Metafiction describes the capacity of fiction to reflect on its own
status as fiction and thus refers to all self-reflexive utterances which
thematize the fictionality (in the sense of imaginary reference and/or
constructedness) of narrative. Metafiction is, literally, fiction about fic­
tion, i.e. fiction that includes within itself reflections on its own fiction­
al identity (Hutcheon 1980). Thus, the term is a hypernym denoting all
205 Metanarration and Metafiction

sorts of self-reflective utterances and elements of a fictional narrative

that do not treat their referent as apparent reality but instead induce
readers to reflect on the textuality and fictionality of narrative in terms
of its artifactuality (Wolf 1993: 224).
Following Wolf’s definition of metafiction as a form of discourse
which draws the recipient’s attention to the fictionality of the narrative,
it becomes evident that the term cannot be equated with metanarration
(Nünning 2004). Metanarrative comments are concerned with the act
and/or process of narration, and not with its fictional nature. In contrast
to metafiction, which can only appear in the context of fiction, types of
metanarration can also be found in many non-fictional narrative genres
and media. Metanarrative passages need not destroy aesthetic → illu­
sion, but may also contribute to substantiating the illusion of authenti­
city that a narrative seeks to create. It is precisely the concept of narra-
torial illusionism, suggesting the presence of a speaker or narrator, that
illustrates that metanarrative expressions can serve to create a different
type of illusion by accentuating the act of narration, thus triggering a
different strategy of naturalization, viz. what Fludernik (1996: 341) has
called the “frame of storytelling.”
As a distinct form of narratorial utterance, metanarration displays a
variety of textual functions (Prince [1987] 2003: 51). In contrast to
Genette’s ([1972] 1980: 261–62) suggestion, it cannot be restricted to
the narrator’s “directing functions,” i.e. to references thematizing the
“internal organization” of the text. Rather, all comments which address
aspects of narration in a self-reflexive manner as well as the → nar­
rator’s references to his or her communication with the narratee on the
discourse level can be subsumed under the term “metanarration.” Al­
though such comments are detached from the narrated world, they do
not possess a high degree of generality because they refer to one speci-
fic object: the act of narrating. Since such self-reflexive comments can
be defined according to their reference to the act of narration, they
make the → reader realize that what s/he is dealing with is a narrative.
Fludernik (1996: 278) describes the accumulation of metanarrative ex­
pressions as “a deliberate meta-narrative celebration of the act of narra­
tion.”

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Research in the field of metafiction has been cultivated over decades

and goes back well before 1970, when the term was first introduced in
essays by Scholes (1970) and Gass (1970). Analyzing Laurence
Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy, Šklovskij (1921), for instance, ad­
 Metanarration and Metafiction 206

dresses the concept as a “device of laying bare the device,” namely as a

device through which the storytelling itself is made part of the story
told. Scholes (1970) coined the term “metafiction” to designate fiction
that incorporates various perspectives of criticism into the fictional
process, thereby emphasizing structural, formal, or philosophical prob­
lems. Since then, metafiction has become a major topic in narratologi-
cal research, replacing the hitherto established and more narrowly
defined terms “self-conscious narration” (Booth 1952) and “irony of
fictionality.” In fact, metafiction has met with considerable academic
interest both as a historical element of (narrative) fiction and as a hall­
mark of postmodernism, and book-length studies (Hutcheon 1980;
Waugh 1984) have been devoted to it. The conceptualization of forms
and functions of metafiction evolved from the mid-1970s to the mid-
1980s, precisely when scholars were attempting to define postmodern­
ism as an epoch and ethos (O’Donnell 2005).
The first attempt to propose a comprehensive theory of metafiction
was made by Hutcheon (1980). She understands metafictional narra-
tives as “narcissistic” because they are fundamentally self-referring and
auto-representational (1980: x). By mirroring their own process of fic­
tional construction, metafictional texts, such as Gabriel García Már­
quez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude or Italo Calvino’s If on a
Winter’s Night a Traveler, draw the reader’s attention to the story-
telling process and undermine the realism of the narrative. Metafiction­
al strategies therefore often produce a hermeneutic paradox: readers are
forced to acknowledge the fictional status of the narrative, while at the
same time they become co-creators of its meanings. Hutcheon’s most
crucial distinction is that between overt and covert forms of metafic­
tion. While overtly metafictional texts disclose their self-awareness in
“explicit thematizations […] of their diegetic or linguistic identity
within the texts themselves,” covert forms “internalize” this process:
They are “self-reflective but not necessarily self-conscious” (7). Simil­
arly, Waugh (1984: 14) defines metafiction as fiction which “self-con­
sciously reflects upon its own structure as language,” thereby ostenta­
tiously parading the conventions and language of the realistic novel.
Although Hutcheon’s and Waugh’s approaches have contributed to a
better understanding of metafiction, they are problematic because they
reduce its effects to anti-illusionism.
A different approach is put forward by Wolf (1993, 1998) who fo­
cuses, firstly, on the formal variety of metafiction. To capture the dif­
ferent forms of metafiction and their potential effects, Wolf (1993:
220–65) develops a typology based on three dimensions: the form of
mediation, the contextual relation, and the contents value. The first di­
207 Metanarration and Metafiction

mension refers to the level of narration on which the speaker engaged

in metafictional reflections can be situated. Metafictional comments
can be explicitly uttered by a character of the narrated world or by the
narrator when reflecting on the fictional nature of the text (mode of tel-
ling). Alternatively, they can be conveyed implicitly through formal
means, e.g. through contradictory and highly implausible elements
which disrupt the mimetic illusion (mode of showing). According to
the second criterion, contextual relation, various forms of metafiction
can be distinguished depending on whether they appear in a central or
marginal position and how deeply they are entangled with the narrated
story. Using Wolf’s third criterion, contents value, one can differenti­
ate between various forms of explicit metafiction depending on wheth­
er metafiction refers to the “fictio or the fictum status” of a passage,
whether it contains comments on the entire text or only on parts of it,
and whether the commentary refers to the text itself, to literature in
general, or to another text.
While metafiction has often been perceived as a primary quality of
postmodern literature, Wolf (1998) stresses that (Western) narrative
fiction has contained metafictional elements ever since its beginnings
(cf. also Alter 1975 and Hutcheon 1980). From Homer to Salman
Rushdie, from Don Quixote and Jacques le fataliste to The Remains of
the Day, narratives have bared the conventions of storytelling and high­
lighted their constructed nature. However, its frequency and function
vary depending on genres and epochs. The functions of metafiction
range from undermining aesthetic illusion to poetological self-reflec­
tion, commenting on aesthetic procedures, the celebration of the act of
narrating, and playful exploration of the possibilities and limits of fic­
tion.
Wolf’s detailed typology has also provided a sound basis for the
analysis of metafiction in various other genres such as poetry, drama
and music. In recent contributions, Wolf (forthcoming) seeks to in­
crease the transmedial applicability of metafiction by reconceptualizing
it in a first step as a non media-specific concept, namely as “metarefer­
ence.” Metareference denotes a signifying practice that generates a
self-referential meaning and actualizes a secondary cognitive frame in
the recipient. On this basis, individual media can be examined with re­
spect to their metareferential capacities.
In contrast to metafiction, the terms “metanarration” or “metanarra-
tive comment” have not become common categories of narratology, al­
though they have been used in some narratological studies (e.g. Genette
1972; Hamon 1977; Prince 1982; Scheffel 1997; Cutter 1998). There
are at least two reasons for this. Firstly, the term metafiction is so
 Metanarration and Metafiction 208

widely used in English for all sorts of anti-illusionistic techniques that

forms of metanarration are generally subsumed under this umbrella.
Secondly, in the few contributions in which the term metanarrative is
used at all, it is commonly perceived as an English equivalent of grand
récit (in Lyotard’s sense) and thus as synonymous with “master narra-
tive” (e.g. Hutcheon [1989] 1996: 262). Due to the equation of meta-
narration with metafiction, narratological research has largely focused
on metafictional forms of narrative self-reflexivity, giving little atten­
tion to such metanarrative phenomena as digressions and other self-re­
flexive narratorial interventions. The exception to the rule is Prince
(1982: 115–28). A number of recent articles have redressed the bal­
ance, putting the subject of metanarrative on the map of narratological
research (Nünning 2004; Fludernik 2003). They have provided a de­
scriptive analysis of different types of metanarration as well as a survey
of its changing functions in English novels from the 17th century to the
present.
Predicated on the assumption that metanarration is a distinct form of
narratorial utterance, Nünning (2004), drawing on Wolf’s (1993) dis­
tinction between various forms of metafiction, develops a typology that
identifies the most important sub-categories of metanarration. The ty­
pology is based on four basic aspects, which in turn give rise to subsi­
diary distinctions: (a) formal; (b) structural; (c) content-related; and (d)
reception-oriented types of metanarrative.
Firstly, a formal distinction can be made between diegetic, extradie­
getic, and paratextual types of metanarration, depending on the level of
communication at which the speaker of the metanarrative comments
can be situated. Metanarrative comments typically occur on the dis­
course level, though intradiegetic character-narrators may also themat­
ize narrative aspects.
Secondly, structural types of metanarration can be differentiated ac­
cording to the criterion of the quantitative and qualitative relations
between metanarrative expressions and other parts of a narrated text as
well as the syntagmatic integration of such metanarrative passages.
Thirdly, depending on the subject area or the selection of topic,
various types of metanarration can be distinguished on the basis of con­
tent. One important content-related criterion concerns the reference
point of metanarrative expressions. Metanarrative reflections can be re­
stricted to auto-referential comments on the narrator’s own act of nar­
rating, they can thematize the narrative style of other authors and texts,
or they can refer to the process of narration in general. Fludernik
(2003) has coined the terms “proprio-metanarration,” “allo-metanarra­
209 Metanarration and Metafiction

tion” and “general metanarration” in order to distinguish between these

different reference points.
Fourthly, a typological differentiation arises as to the potential ef­
fects and functions of metanarration. This differentiation is based on
the assumption that an accumulation of metanarrative commentaries
contributes to foregrounding the narrative act and to creating the illu­
sion of being addressed by a personalized voice or a “teller” (Fludernik
1996: 278). As in Tristram Shandy, the plethora of metanarrative often
enhances the “mimesis of narrating” (Nünning 2001). The functions of
metanarration differ according to a decreasing level of compatibility
with diegetic illusion or to an increasing level of destruction of aesthe-
tic illusion. These functions range from authenticating and empathy-in­
ducing functions, which are fully compatible with mimetic aesthetic il­
lusion, to parodic and anti-illusionistic types of metanarrative interven­
tions. Of course, not only the forms but also the functions of metanar­
ration are subject to historical variability. Whereas, for instance, in
realistic 19th-century novels metanarration primarily serves to create a
trust-inducing conversation between the explicit narrator and the nar­
ratee, in numerous novels from the second half of the 20 th century it is
functionalized in a metafictional way.
Drawing on Nünning’s typology of metanarration, Fludernik (2003)
suggests subdividing the category of metanarration into metadiscursive,
metanarrational, meta-aesthetic and metacompositional elements, high­
lighting the extensiveness and historical variability of this narrative
form. Moreover, she proposes an alternative schema which differenti­
ates between metafiction, metanarrative and non-narrational self-re­
flexivity. To circumvent the potential ambiguity between metanarration
and metafiction, she employs the term metanarrative exclusively with
regard to self-reflexive statements referring to the discourse and its
constructedness and limits the term metafiction to self-reflexive utter­
ances about the inventedness of the story (i.e. to Wolf’s explicit meta-
fiction). By introducing the category of non-narrational self-reflexivity
(i.e. Wolf’s implicit metafiction), which comprises, e.g. mise-en-abyme
or metaleptic plot configurations, Fludernik sets out to dissociate the
mimesis of narration from a teller figure and highlights the contact
zones between various self-reflexive devices across different genres
and media.
 Metanarration and Metafiction 210

4 Topics for Further Investigation

Desiderata for narratological research still include differentiated inves-

tigations of the forms, functions, and diachronic development of meta-
fiction and metanarration. One relatively unexplored issue concerns the
development of self-reflexive narrative forms over various periods of
literary history, not only in narrative fiction, but also in other genres
and media. Moreover, there are hardly any studies concerning func­
tions that may be fulfilled by certain forms of self-reflexive narration in
different historical epochs and literary genres. Finally, it is also neces­
sary to investigate the culture-specific forms and functions of metafic­
tion and metanarration. In this respect, it would be interesting to pro-
vide comparisons between forms of narrative self-reflexivity or self-
referentiality in Western and non-Western literature.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Alter, Robert (1975). Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre. Berkeley:
U of California P.
Booth, Wayne C. (1952). “The Self-Conscious Narrator in Comic Fiction before Tris­
tram Shandy.” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of Amer­
ica 67, 163–85.
Cutter, Martha J. (1998). “Of Metatexts, Metalanguages, and Possible Worlds: The
Transformative Power of Metanarrative in C.P. Gilman’s Later Short Fiction.”
American Literary Realism 31, 41–59.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
– (2003). “Metanarrative and Metafictional Commentary: From Metadiscursivity to
Metanarration and Metafiction.” Poetica 35, 1–39.
Gass, William H. (1970). Fiction and the Figures of Life. New York: Knopf.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
Hamon, Philippe (1977). “Texte littéraire et metalanguage.” Poétique 31, 261–84.
Hutcheon, Linda (1980). Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. New
York: Methuen.
– ([1989] 1996). “Incredulity toward Metanarrative: Negotiating Postmodernism and
Feminisms.” K. Mezei (ed). Ambiguous Discourse: Feminist Narratology and Bri-
tish Women Writers. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 262–67.
Nünning, Ansgar (2001). “Mimesis des Erzählens: Prolegomena zu einer Wirkungsäs­
thetik, Typologie und Funktionsgeschichte des Akts des Erzählens und der Me­
tanarration.” J. Helbig (ed). Erzählen und Erzähltheorie im 20. Jahrhundert: Nar­
ratologische Studien aus Anlass des 65. Geburtstags von Wilhelm Füger. Heidel­
berg: Winter, 13–47.
211 Metanarration and Metafiction

– (2004). “Towards a Definition, a Typology and an Outline of the Functions of

Metanarrative Commentary.” J. Pier (ed). The Dynamics of Narrative Form: Stu-
dies in Anglo-American Narratology. Berlin: de Gruyter, 11–57.
O’Donnell, Patrick (2005). “Metafiction.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclo­
pedia of Narative Theory. London: Routledge, 301–02.
Prince, Gerald (1982). Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin.:
Mouton de Gruyter.
– ([1987] 2003). A Dictionary of Narratology. Aldershot: Scolar Press.
Scheffel, Michael (1997). Formen selbstreflexiven Erzählens: Eine Typologie und
sechs exemplarische Analysen. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Scholes, Robert (1970). “Metafiction.” Iowa Review 1, 100–15.
Šklovskij, Viktor (Shklovsky, Victor) ([1921] 1965). “Sterne’s Tristram Shandy: Styl­
istic Commentary.” L. Lemon & M. Reis (eds). Russian Formalist Criticism: Four
Essays. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 25–57.
Waugh, Patricia (1984). Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fic­
tion. London: Methuen.
Wolf, Werner (1993). Ästhetische Illusion und Illusionsdurchbrechung in der Erzähl­
kunst: Theorie und Geschichte mit Schwerpunkt auf englischem illusionsstörenden
Erzählen. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
– ([1998] 2004). “Metafiktion.” A. Nünning (ed). Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und
Kulturtheorie. Stuttgart: Metzler, 447–48.
– (forthcoming). “Metareference in the Arts and Media.” W. Wolf & W. Bernhart
(eds). Metareference in the Arts and Media. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

5.2 Further Reading

Dupuy, Jean-Pierre (1989). “Self-reference in Literature.” Poetics 18, 491–515.
Peters, Joan D. (2002). Feminist Metafiction and the Evolution of the British Novel.
Gainesville: UP of Florida.
Quendler, Christian (2001). From Romantic Irony to Postmodernist Metafiction: A
Contribution to the History of Literary Self-Reflexivity in its Philosophical Context.
Frankfurt a.M.: Lang.
 Narration in Film
Johann N. Schmidt

1 Definition

The general proposition that there is no narrative without a → narrator

poses particular problems when applied to narration in feature films (as
distinct from documentaries, etc.). Though almost all of these films,
many of them adaptations from literature, abound in storytelling capa­
cities and thus belong to a predominantly narrative medium, their spe­
cific mode of plurimedial presentation and their peculiar blending of
temporal and spatial elements set them apart from forms of → narrati-
vity that are principally language-based. The narratological inventory,
when applied to cinema, is bound to incorporate and combine a large
number of “co-creative” techniques “constructing the story world for
specific effects” (Bordwell 1985: 12) and creating an overall meaning
only in their totality. The absence of a narrative subject is to be com­
pensated for by the construction of a “visual narrative instance” (De­
leyto 1996: 219; Kuhn 2009) mediating the paradigms of overtly cine­
matographic devices (elements relating to camera, sound, editing), the
mise-en-scène (arranging and composing the scene in front of the cam­
era), and a distinctly filmic focalization.
On the other hand, the most solid narrative link between verbal and
visual representation is sequentiality, since literary and filmic signs are
apprehended consecutively through time, mostly (though not always)
following a successive and causal order. It is this consecutiveness that
“gives rise to an unfolding structure, the diegetic whole” (Cohen 1979:
92). The main features of narrative strategies in literature can also be
found in film, although the characteristics of these strategies differ sig­
nificantly. In many cases, it seems to be appropriate to speak of “equi­
valences” between literary and filmic storytelling and to analyze the
pertinent differences between the two media in narrative representa­
tion. These equivalences are far more complex than is suggested by any
mere “translation” or “adaptation” from one medium into another.
213 Narration in Film

2 Explication

Broadly speaking, there are two different outlooks on cinema that di­
vide the main camps of narratological research. If the medium itself
and its unique laws of formal representation (→ narration in various
media) serve as a starting-point (as it is the case in the course of this
article), many of its parameters either transcend or obscure the catego-
ries that have been gained in tracking narrative strategies of literary
texts. Thus Metz states that film is not a “language” but another kind of
semiotic system with “articulations” of its own (Chatman 1990: 124).
Though some of the equivalences between literary and filmic narrative
may be quite convincing (the neutral establishing shot of a panoramic
view can be easily equated with external focalization or even zero fo­
calization), many other parallels must necessarily abstract from a num­
ber of diverse principles of aesthetic organization before stating simil­
arities in the perception of literature and film. Despite the fact that ad­
apting literary texts into movies has long since become a conventional
practice, the variability of cinematographic modes of narrative expres­
sion calls for such a number of subcategories that the principle of gen­
eralization (inherent in any valid theory) becomes jeopardized.
If, however, narratological principles sensu stricto move to the fore
of analysis, the question of medial specificity seems to be less impor-
tant. Narratologists of a strongly persistent stance regret that connota­
tions of visuality are dominant even in terms like point of view (→ per­
spective) and → focalization, and they maintain that the greatest divide
between verbal and visual strategies is in literature, not in film (Brütsch
forthcoming). They hold that narratological categories in film and liter­
ary studies differ much less than most scholars would suggest. Since
Genette’s model presents a primarily narratological, transliterary con-
cept (albeit close to novel studies), mediality is seen as affecting “nar­
rative in a number of important ways, but on a level of specific repre-
sentations only. In general, narrativity can be constituted in equal
measure in all textual and visual media” (Fludernik 1996: 353).
The two approaches being given, they themselves depend on which
scholarly perspective is preferred: either how far narrative principles
can be limited to questions of narrativity alone, or whether the require­
ments of the medium are a conclusive consequence for its narrative ca­
pacities.
 Narration in Film 214

3 Development of Film Narration and

History of the Study of Film Narration

Film as a largely syncretistic, hybrid, and multimedial form of aesthetic

communication bears a number of generic characteristics which are
tied to the history and the various capacities of its narrative constitu­
ents.

3.1 Development of Film Narration

3.1.1 Literature into Film

According to Deleyto, “[it] is through cinema, television, and video,
and not through novels that most stories are ‘told’ nowadays” (1996:
218). Film can claim to be a legitimate successor (and competitor) of
fictional literature insofar as it is capable of “employing complex sujet
constructions, developing parallels in the fabula, enacting changes of
any given action, accentuating details, etc.” (Ėjxenbaum [1927] 1990:
116). Ėjzenštejn claims that Charles Dickens’s narrative art anticipated
the method of his own montage of parallel scenes ([1949] 1992: 395–
402).

3.1.2 The Plurimedial Nature of Cinema

The conventional separation of “showing” and “telling” and (on a dif­
ferent level) of “seeing” and “reading” does not do justice to the pluri­
medial organization of cinema. Earlier attempts at defining film exclu-
sively along the lines of visualization were meant to legitimize it as an
art form largely independent of the established arts. However much
meaning can be attributed to the visual track of the film, it would be
wrong to state that it is “narrated visually” and little else. On the other
hand, the dominant reliance of the early narrative cinema on existing
literary models seemed to imply that the terminology borrowed from
literary theory could be as easily applied to “film language.”
Both approaches ignore the plurimedial nature of cinema which
draws on multiple sources of temporal and spatial information and its
reliance on the visual and auditive senses. This peculiarity makes it dif­
ficult to sort out the various categories that are operative in its narra­
tion. Like drama, it seems to provide “direct perceptual access to space
and characters” (Grodal 2005: 168); it is “performed” within a similar
frame of time and experienced from a fixed position. What Ingarden
calls “the views and images [visuelle Ansichten] made concrete by ac-
tors and the scenery” ([1931] 1972: 403) corresponds to the filmic
mise-en-scène. Unlike drama, however, a film is not produced in quasi-
215 Narration in Film

lifelike corporal subsequences, but its sequences are bound together in

a technically unique process (“post-production”) to conform to a very
specific perceptual and cognitive comprehension of the world (Grodal
2005: 169). Similar to literary narration, it can influence the viewing
positions of the recipient and dispose freely of location and temporal
sequences as long as it contains generic signals of shifts in time and
→ space.

3.1.3 Technical Strategies of Storytelling

Films are generally made by a large group of people, aside from the
very few exceptions where one person is the producer, director, camera
operator, sound expert and actor at the same time (e.g. Fassbinder’s In
a Year of Thirteen Moons, 1978). It derives its impact from a number
of technical, performative and aesthetic strategies that combine in a
syncretizing, largely hybrid medium, establishing interlocking conven­
tions of storytelling. As an industrial product, it also reflects the histor­
ical standard of technology in its narrative structure, whether it is a si­
lent film with inserted reading titles or a film using high-resolution di­
gital multi-track sound, whether a static camera is turned on the scene
or a modern editing technique lends the images an overpowering kinet­
ic energy, etc. Not only the mode of production but also the reception
of highly varied formats in film history have altered narrative
paradigms that had formerly seemed unchangeable. Thus it has long
been a rule that the speed and the sequentiality of a film’s projection is
mechanically fixed so that the viewer has no possibility of interrupting
the “reading” to “leaf” back and forth through the scenes or of studying
the composition of a single shot for longer than the actual running time.
In the auditorium-space, s/he lacked any manifest control over the
screen-space. It was with the introduction of video and DVD that the
viewer could control speed variations, play the film backwards, view it
frame by frame and freeze it, and (as in DVD) use the digitalized space
of navigation to interact, select menus and “construct” a new film with
deleted scenes, an unused score, and alternative endings. This multiple
and fragmented reception gradually led to new perceptive appropria-
tions of cinema, also changing the user’s sense of narrative, which is
no longer predominantly linear. Inward contemplation, up to the “de­
vouring” of a story, has yielded to an attitude of bricolage which is
closer to putting together disjointed elements of narrative arrangements
according to the outward criteria of selectivity, interactivity, and ver­
satility.
 Narration in Film 216

3.1.4 Narrative Modes in the History of Cinema

Narration in film possesses as its two main components current aesthet­
ic concepts and, inseparably interwoven with these concepts, the tech­
nical means available at the time of production. Silent movies from
1895 onward lacked not only verbal expression, but also narrative
structures beyond the stringing together of stage effects, arranged
tableaux, and sensationalist trick scenes. What was then perceived as
the only striking narrative device consisted in showing these scenes
within a framed space and against the common laws of temporal con­
tinuity. But on the whole, these movies were still very much indebted
to the 19th-century apparatus in which the process of seeing as a per­
ceptual and motoric element was closely connected with pre-cinematic
“spatial and bodily experiences” (Elsaesser 1990: 3).
This early “cinema of attractions” (Gunning 1986) gradually made
way for “narrativization” (233) from 1907 to about 1913 through the
process of structural organization of cinematic signifiers and the “cre­
ation of a self-enclosed diegetic universe” (233). The result, initiated
by David Wark Griffith in particular, was an “institutional mode of
representation,” also known as “classical narration” (Schweinitz 1999:
74). The filmic discourse was to create a coherence of vision without
any jerks in time or space or other dissonant and disruptive elements in
the process of viewing. The basic trajectory of the classical Hollywood
ideal (also taken over by UFA and other national film industries) in­
volves establishing a cause-and-effect logic, a clear subject-object rela­
tion, and a cohesive effect of visual and auditive perception aimed at
providing the story with an “organic” meaning, however different the
shots that are sliced together might be. A “seamless” and consecutive
style serves to hide “all marks of artifice” (Chatman 1990: 154) and to
give the narrative the appearance of a natural observing position. The
“real” of the cinema is founded at least as much in the real-image qual­
ity of its photography as it is in the system of representation that shows
analogies to the viewer’s capacity to combine visual impressions with a
“story.”
Modernist cinema and non-canonical art films, especially after
1945, repudiate the hegemonistic story regime of classical Hollywood
cinema by laying open the conditions of mediality and artificiality or
by employing literary strategies not as an empathetic but as an alienat-
ing or decidedly modern factor of storytelling. They disrupt the narra-
tive continuum and convert the principle of succession into one of si-
multaneity by means of iteration, frequency (e.g. Kurosawa’s Rasho-
mon, 1950, repeating the same event from different angles as in inter-
nal multiple focalization), and dislocation of the traditional modes of
217 Narration in Film

temporal and spatial representation (e.g. Resnais’ L’année dernière à

Marienbad, 1960). In each of these films, there is an ever-widening gap
between fabula and discourse. Modern cinema also made possible the
flash-forward as the cinematographic equivalent of the prolepsis (e.g.
Losey’s The Go-Between, 1970), used jump cuts (e.g. Godard’s À bout
de souffle, 1959) and non-linear collage elements, or broke with the
narrative convention of character continuity, as when a central protag­
onist disappears in the course of events (Antonioni’s L’Avventura,
1959). All of these assaults on traditional narrativity nevertheless “de­
pend upon narrativity [or our assumptions about it; J.N.S.] and could
not function without it” (Scholes 1985: 396).
Postclassical cinema, responding to growing globalization in its
world-wide distribution and reception, enhances the aesthetics of visual
and auditory effects by means of digitalization, computerized cutting
techniques, and a strategy of immediacy that signals a shift from linear
discourse to a renewed interest in spectacular incidents.

3.1.5 Editing as a Narrative Device

Editing is one of the decisive cinematographic processes for the narra-
tive organization of a film: it connects montage (e.g. the splitting, com­
bining and reassembling of visual segments) with the mix of sound ele­
ments and the choice of strategic points in space (angle, perspective).
The most prominent examples in the early history of filmic narrativiza­
tion are: (a) the simple cut from one scene to another, thus eliminating
dead time by splitting the actual footage (ellipsis); (b) cross-cutting,
which alternates between shots of two spaces, as in pursuit scenes; (c)
parallel montage to accentuate similarity and opposition; (d) the shot-
reverse-shot between two persons talking to each other; (e) the “cut-
in,” which magnifies a significant detail or grotesquely distorts certain
objects of everyday life.
Continuity editing (or analytic montage) aims primarily at facilitat­
ing orientation during transitions in time and space. One basic rule con­
sists in never letting the camera cross the line of action (180-degree
rule), thus respecting geometrical orientation within a given space.
Narrative devices not only obey cognitive storytelling practices, but
also reflect a certain vision of the world. Whereas continuity editing
presupposes a holistic unity in a world which is temporarily in conflict
but finally homogenized (not only plot-wise, but via sensory connec­
tion with the audience’s preferred viewing), Ėjzenštejn’s collision edit­
ing accentuates stark formal and perceptual contrasts to create new
meanings or unusual metaphorical links (Grodal 2005: 171). For other
directors (e.g. Pudovkin), narration in film concentrates not on events
 Narration in Film 218

being strung together in chronological sequence, but on the construc­

tion of powerful situations and significant details presented in an anti­
thetical manner of association. “Internal editing,” as advocated by An­
dré Bazin, avoids visible cuts and creates deep focus (depth of field),
making foreground, middle ground, and background equally sharp, thus
establishing continuity in the very same take.

3.1.6 Time and Space in Cinema

To evoke a sense of the “real,” film creates a temporal and spatial con­
tinuum whose components can be separated only for heuristic pur­
poses. In their “succession and mutual blending,” images “let chronolo­
gically extended events appear in their full concrete sequentiality” (In­
garden [1931] 1972: 344). The temporally organized combination of
visual and acoustic signs corresponds to the unmediated rendering of
space, albeit on a two-dimensional screen. The realization of a posi­
tioned space lies in movement, which imposes a temporal vector upon
the spatial dimension (Lothe 2000: 62). Panofsky describes the result
as “a speeding up of space” and a “spatialization of time” ([1937]
1993: 22). This also explains the inherent dialectic of film as the medi­
um that appears closest to our mimetic registration of the real world,
and yet deviating from real-life experience by its manifold means of es­
tablishing a “second world” of fantasy, dream, and wish fulfillment.
Time can be either stretched out in slow motion or compressed in fast
motion; different spaces may be fused by double exposure or by a per­
manent tension between external and internal time sequences. Thus
narration in cinema has to deal both with the representational realism
of its images and its technical devices in order to integrate or dissociate
time and space, image and sound, depending on the artistic and emo­
tional effect that is to be achieved.

3.1.7 Narrative Functions of Sound

Fulton emphasizes the role of sound in film: “[It] is one of the most
versatile signifiers, since it contributes to field, tenor, and mode as a
powerful creator of meaning, mood and textuality” (Fulton 2005: 108).
It amplifies the diegetic space (thus Bordwell [1985: 119] speaks of
“sound perspective”) and emphasizes modulation of the visual impact
through creating a sonic décor or sonic space. Language, noises, elec­
tronic sounds and music, whether intradiegetic or (like most musical
compositions) extradiegetic, help not only to define the tonality,
volume, tempo and texture of successive situations, but also to orches­
trate and manipulate emotions and heighten the suggestive expressivity
of the story. Sound can range from descriptive passages to climactic
219 Narration in Film

underlining and counterpointing what is seen. Again, what was once

considered as a complete break with narrative rules has become a con­
vention, so that when off-camera sounds are used before the scene they
are related to, they serve as a “springboard” between sequences.
As Elsaesser & Hagener point out, there is a potential dissociation
between body and voice as well as between viewing and hearing which
can be used for comic purposes, but which also stands “in the service
of narration” (2007: 172–73). A voice may have a specific source in
the diegetic space, although separate from the images we see (“voice-
off”), or it can be heard beyond the diegetic limits (“voice-over”). New
technologies such as multi-track sound with high digital resolution (e.g.
Dolby Surround) negate the directional coherence of screen and sound
source, thus leading to tension between the aural and the visual.
Whereas the image can be fixed, the sound derives its existence from
the moment when it is perceived.

3.2 The Narrating Agency in Cinema

One of the most controversial issues in film narratology concerns the

role of the narrator as an instrument of narrative mediation. This re­
flects the difficulty of specifying the narrative process in general and,
more than any other question, it reveals the limits of literary narrativity
when applied to film studies.

3.2.1 Film as Sign System

With the exception of the character narrator and the cinematic device
of the voice-over (whether homo- or heterodiegetic), the traces of a
narrating agency are virtually invisible, so that the term “film narrator”
is employed as hardly more than a metaphor. Undecidedness in termin­
ology became evident right from the beginnings of film theory. Thus
the term “film language,” if not used for a system of signs as was done
by the Formalists, bore the implication that there must also be a
“speaker” of such a language. Modeling cinema after literature in this
way, however, tends to weaken the notion of cinema as an independent
art form. For this reason, Ėjxenbaum transfers the structuring of cine­
matographic meaning to “new conditions of perceptions”: it is the
viewer who moves “to the construction of internal speech” ([1926]
1973: 123).
The first systematic interest in narratology came from the semiotic
turn of film theory starting in the 1960s, notably with Metz’s construct
of the grande syntagmatique (1966). In order to overcome the restric­
tion to small semiotic units (e.g. the single shot in cinema), the concept
 Narration in Film 220

of “code” was used to encompass more extensive syntagmata in film

such as sequences and the whole of the narration. In Metz’s phenomen­
ology of narrative, film is “a complex system of successive, encoded
signs” (Lothe 2000: 12). Metz’s position was criticized by Heath
(1986), who saw in it a neglect of the central role of the viewer in mak­
ing meaning (Schweinitz 1999: 79). By excluding the subject position
of the spectator, a predominantly formalistic approach overlooks the
potentially decisive impact of affectivity and subconscious processes.
For this reason, psychoanalytic theories concentrated on the similarities
that exist between film and dream, hallucination, and desire as impor-
tant undercurrents of the realist surface. Feminist theories dealt with
the gendered gaze that is applied not only in the film itself, but is also
cast on the film by the viewer, thus creating a conflict between voyeur­
ism and subjugation to the power of images. Studies of popular culture,
finally, examined the functioning of cinematic discourse within a wider
cultural communicative process which is conveyed by a host of visual
signs.

3.2.2 Film Narrator―Film Narration

In the 1980s, the more systematic narrative discourse of the Wisconsin
School resorted to a cognitive and constructivist approach, defining the
narrative scheme as an optional “redescription of data under epistemol-
ogical restraint” (Branigan 1992: 112). Its main interest is in a strictly
rational and logical explication of narrative and in mental processes
that render perceptual data intelligible. Whereas Chatman’s concept of
narration is still anchored in literary theory (Booth, Todorov), seeing
the visual concreteness of cinema as its basic mark of distinction from
literature, Branigan and Bordwell abandon straightaway the idea of a
cinematic narrator or a narrative voice. They hold that the construct of
the narrator is wrapped up in the “activity of narration” itself which is
performed on various levels: “To give every film a narrator or implied
author is to indulge in an anthropomorphic fiction” (Bordwell 1985:
62). The author as an “essential subject” who is in possession of psy­
chological properties or of a human voice is replaced by the notion of
narration understood as a process or an activity in comparison to nar­
rative and which is defined as “the organization of a set of cues for the
construction of a story” (62) presupposing an active perceiver of a mes­
sage, but no sender. According to Bordwell and Branigan, cinemato­
graphic narratives cannot be understood within a general semiotic sys­
tem of narrative, but only in terms of historically variant narrative
structures that are perceived in the act of viewing. They are supported
by the viewer’s hypotheses about spatial and temporal conventions as
221 Narration in Film

well as by stabilized patterns behind individual perception. It follows

from this that certain prerequisites of filmic narration are not “natural”
or taken from literary models, but have been conventionalized: such is
the case when a character’s walk from A to B is shortened to the points
of departure and arrival with a sharp cut in between, or when a flash­
back bridges vast leaps of time, or when extradiegetic music is no part
of the story proper, even though it may reflect the inner state of a char­
acter or establish a certain mood. The same holds true for the almost
imperceptibly varying amount of information that is shared by charac­
ters and audience alike. At this point, focalization becomes a major is­
sue when the viewer shifts into the diegetic world of a film.
The effacement of the narrator and the idea that film seems to “nar­
rate itself” stand in contrast to the impression that all visual and audi-
tive modes impart an authorial presence or an “enunciator,” however
impersonal. Many different terms and theoretical constructs have been
introduced to overcome the logical impasse of having a narration
without a narrator (Völker 1999: 48): “camera eye,” “first-degree nar­
rator,” “primary narrative agency” (Black 1986: 4, 22); “ultimate nar­
ratorial agency” or “supra-narrator” (Tomasulo 1986: 46); “organising
consciousness,” “heterodiegetic narrator” (Fulton 2005: 113); “het­
erodiegetic ‘camera’” in a metaphoric sense (Schlickers 1997: 77);
“fictional contract with the addressee” (Burgoyne 1990: 6); “invisible
observer” (Bordwell 1985: 9–10); etc. What is common to most defini­
tions is the existence of some overall control of visual and sonic re­
gisters where the camera functions as an intermediator of visual and
acoustic information. The invisible observer theory even maintains that
it is the camera that narrates (the French director Alexandre Astruc
coined the famous phrase “caméra stylo”). Deleyto (1996: 217) rejects
this view, drawing on the conventional distinction between narrator
(“who speaks?”) and focalizer (“who sees?”) although, unlike Bord­
well, he does not grant the external focalizer the option of occupying
the position of the camera. He rather contends that “whereas in the
novel the two kinds of focalization (internal/external) alternate, in film
several internal and external focalisers can appear simultaneously at
different points inside or outside the frame, all contributing to the de­
velopment of the narrative and the creation of a permanent tension
between subjectivity and objectivity” (217). A case in point is the ob­
jective presentation of external narration to make internal processes
both visible and understandable. Even in voice-over narration, the fig­
ural and auditive representation of the narrator is soon forgotten in fa­
vor of the virtual position of an impersonal narrative instance. The few
experimental films that construct events “through the eyes” of the main
 Narration in Film 222

character (e.g. Montgomery’s The Lady in the Lake, 1947), thus creat­
ing an unmediated presence by means of internal ocularization, make
the viewer painfully aware of the impersonal and subjectless apparatus
of the camera which alienates them from the character rather than
drawing them into his ways of seeing and feeling.

3.2.3 Unreliability of Film Narration

Though there are filmic devices to give a scene the appearance of unre­
liability or deception, the “visual narrator” in film, unlike the homodie­
getic one in written narrative, cannot tell a downright lie that is visual­
ized at the very same moment, unless the veracity of the photographic
image is put into question (cf. the fabricated, hence “untrue” flashback
in Stage Fright, 1950, which director Alfred Hitchcock considered a
serious mistake since it didn’t work). However, there can be various
types of fictional contracts with the audience that transcend the postu­
late of narrative verisimilitude, allowing even a dead person to tell his
story as a “character narrator” (e.g. Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, 1950),
or when the dancers in a musical step on walls and ceilings, or when a
film is built around a puzzle, putting into question any form of reliable
narration (a summary of “unreliable situations” in cinema is given in
Liptay & Wolf eds. 2005, passim; Helbig ed. 2006, passim).

3.3 Point of View

Even if one accepts the seemingly contradictory postulate of a narrative

situation without a narrator, the question of perspective in narrative
discourse becomes an all-important issue as soon as the viewer shifts
into the diegetic world. According to Genette, there is a difference
between “mood” and “voice,” i.e. the question “who is the character
whose point of view orients the narrative perspective?” and the ques­
tion “who is the narrator?” (Genette [1972] 1980: 186; Schlickers
1997: 127–32).

3.3.1 Viewpoints
Point of view (POV) clearly becomes the prime starting point for narra­
tology when applied to film. Though it has been defined as “a concrete
perceptual fact linked to the camera position” (Grodal 2005: 168), its
actual functions in narrative can be far more flexible and multifarious
than this definition suggests. As Branigan states in his landmark study
on narrative comprehension in cinema, point of view can best be under­
stood as organizing meaning through a combination of various levels of
narration which are defined by a “dialectical site of seeing and seen”
223 Narration in Film

or, more specifically, the “mediator and the object of our gaze” (1984:
47). Branigan offers a model of seven “levels of narration” which is
based on Genette’s study of focalization and allows for constant oscil­
lation between these levels, from extra-/heterodiegetic and omniscient
narration to adapting the highly subjective perception of a character.
Fulton speaks of a “multiple focalisation” that is “realized by different
camera angles, which position us to see the action from a number of
different viewpoints” (2005: 114). Yet there are many more focusing
strategies which select and control our perception as well as our emo­
tional involvement such as deep-focus, the length and scale of a shot,
specific lighting, etc. The prerequisite for any POV analysis, however,
is the recognition that everything in cinema consists of “looks”: the
viewer looks at characters who look at each other, or s/he looks at
them, adopting their perspective of the diegetic world while the camera
frames a special field of seeing, or the viewer is privileged to look at
something out of the line of vision of any of the characters. Thus the
very question “Who sees?” involves a categorization of different forms
of POV that organize and orient the narrative from a visual and spatial
standpoint and that also include cognitive processes based on a number
of presuppositions about a proper perspective, not to speak of auditory
information.

3.3.2 Focalization and Ocularization

POV has been understood as an optical paradigm or, quite literally, as
visual point (or “eyepoint”): it is “ocularization” that is believed to de­
termine both the position of the camera and the “look” of a homodie­
getic/heterodiegetic character. Schlickers speaks in this respect of a
“double perspectivation” (2009). In many cases, it seems almost im­
possible to come to a clear conclusion whether the camera imitates the
eyepoint of a character (i.e. the literal viewpoint as realized in “eye-
line matches”) or whether it observes “from outside” in the sense of
narrative mediation. So we may see something “with the eyes” of a
character whose back is visibly turned to us (“over-shoulder shot”) or
of a character who tries to grasp a tangible object that dissolves in the
air like a hallucination, as is the case in Lang’s Die Nibelungen (1924)
when the Nibelung treasure appears to Siegfried on a rock. Jost sug­
gests distinguishing between internal focalization and zero focalization
([1987] 1989: 157), whereas Bal differentiates between focalization on
“perceptible” objects and focalization on “imperceptible” objects
([1985] 1997: 153). Both alternatives, however, neglect the possibility
of the blurring of the two types of focalization. Moreover, it makes a
difference whether we are to gain an impression of what a character
 Narration in Film 224

feels and thinks or whether the film seeks to present objective correla-
tives of the mental and emotional dispositions of a protagonist. The
possible mingling of “real” and mental aspects makes it difficult to dif­
ferentiate between focalization and ocularization as soon as there is no
marking of where a certain situation has its definite starting-point,
whether in an optical perspective or in a subjective perception (or
both). To understand POV in terms of the optical and auditory vantage
point of a character, as Bordwell does when he speaks of an “optically
subjective shot” (1985: 60), overlooks the fact that focalization can
shift all around its diegetic world (Fulton 2005: 111) without any no­
ticeable breaks in the narration or any unconventional narrative tech­
niques. Though narratology possesses tools for analyzing these shifts,
the categories used for film analysis seem to be far more complicated
than those employed for literary narration.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) Film results in a story unfolding according to the possibilities and

constraints of the medium “in order to achieve specific time-bound ef­
fects on a perceiver” (Bordwell 1985: xi). Various levels of perception
and cognition, many of them rooted in convention, are related to a logic
of combination which determines the basic qualities of filmic narration.
This paves the way for two approaches which should be tried in fruitful
competition. Either the complexity of paradigms can be reduced to a
model of abstraction which makes it possible to compare narrative pro­
cesses in literature and in film without paying too much heed to medial
specificities, or there must be an attempt to analyze the multiple forms
of interplay that stem from the double vantage points of seeing and be­
ing seen, sight and sound, light and shadow, spatial and temporal ele­
ments, moving images and movement within the images.
(b) If narrative is a fundamental issue in filmic signification, its log-
ic must be re-examined with new ways of storytelling in cinema that
play games or lead the viewer into a maze of ontological uncertainties.
Narrativity, spectator engagement and novel techniques of presentation
combine to produce a “filmic speech” which a formal analysis of narra­
tional strategies can grasp only up to a certain point. The repertoire of
narratology must be extended to explain the functioning of modern me­
dia.
(c) In sum, there is no doubt that feature films are a form of narra-
tive that share the principal features of storytelling in literature. The
crux of the matter, however, is that almost every analysis which is re­
stricted to transmedial narrativity risks blotting out the historical devel­
225 Narration in Film

opments of film narration, inseparably interwoven with the achieve­

ments and capacities of the medium. In Metz’s words: “[Film] ‘says’
things that could also be conveyed in the language of words, yet it says
them differently” ([1968] 1974: 44).

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Bal, Mieke ([1985] 1997). Narratology. Introduction to the Theory of Narrative.
Toronto: U of Toronto P.
Black, David A. (1986). “Genette and Film: Narrative Level in the Fiction Cinema.”
Wide Angle 8.3–4, 19–26.
Bordwell, David (1985). Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: U of Wisconsin P.
Branigan, Edward R. (1984). Point of View in the Cinema. A Theory of Narration and
Subjectivity in Classical Film. Berlin: Mouton.
– (1992). Narrative Comprehension and Film. London: Routledge.
Brütsch, Matthias (forthcoming). Modelle der Erzählperspektive in Literatur- und
Filmwissenschaft. Eine kritische Betrachtung und Weiterentwicklung unter beson­
derer Berücksichtigung der filmischen Subjektivierung und Innenweltdarstellung.
Burgoyne, Robert (1990). “The Cinematic Narrator: The Logic and Pragmatics of Im­
personal Narration.” Journal of Film and Video 42, 3–16.
Chatman, Seymour (1974). “Narration and Point of View in Fiction and the Cinema.”
Poetica (Tokyo) 1, 21–46.
– (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
– (1990). Coming to Terms. The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca:
Cornell UP.
– (1999). “The Cinematic Narrator.” L. Braudy & M. Cohen (eds). Film Theory and
Criticism: Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford UP, 473–86.
Cohen, Keith (1979). Film and Fiction: The Dynamics of Exchange. New Haven: Yale
UP.
Deleyto, Celestino (1996). “Focalisation in Film Narrative.” S. Onega & J. Á. García
Landa (eds). Narratology. London: Longman, 217–33.
Ėjxenbaum, Boris (Eikhenbaum) ([1926] 1973). “Literature and Cinema.” St. Bann &
J. Bowlt (eds). Russian Formalism: A Collection of Articles and Texts in Transla­
tion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 122–27.
– (Ejchenbaum) ([1927] 1995). “Probleme der Filmstilistik.” F.-J. Albersmeier (ed).
Texte zur Theorie des Films. Stuttgart: Reclam, 97–137.
Ėjzenštejn, Sergej (Eisenstein, Sergei) ([1949] 1992). “Dickens, Griffith, and the Film
Today.” G. Mast et al. (eds). Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford: Oxford UP, 395–
402.
Elsaesser, Thomas (1990). “Film Form: Introduction.” Th. E. (ed). Early Cinema:
Space―Frame―Narrative. London: BFI, 11–30.
– & Malte Hagener (2007). Filmtheorie zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius.
 Narration in Film 226

Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.

Fulton, Helen (2005). “Film Narrative and Visual Cohesion.” H. F. et al. (eds). Narra-
tive and Media. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 108–22.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discours: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
Grodal, Torben (2005). “Film Narrative.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclope­
dia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 168–72.
Gunning, Tom (1986). “The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator, and the
Avant–Garde.” Ph. Rosen (ed). Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology. A Film Theory
Reader. New York: Columbia UP, 229–35.
Heath, Stephen (1986). “Narrative Space.” Ph. Rosen (ed). Narrative, Apparatus, Ideo­
logy. A Film Theory Reader. New York: Columbia UP, 379–420.
Helbig, Jörg, ed. (2006). “Camera doesn’t lie”: Spielarten erzählerischer Unzuverläs­
sigkeit im Film. Trier: WVT.
Ingarden, Roman ([1931] 1972). Das literarische Kunstwerk. Mit einem Anhang ‘Von
den Funktionen der Sprache im Theaterschauspiel’. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Jost, François ([1987] 1989). L’œil―Caméra. Entre film et roman. Lyon: PU de Lyon.
Kuhn, Markus (2009). “Film Narratology: Who Tells? Who Shows? Who Focalizes?
Narrative Mediation in Self-Reflexive Fiction Films.” P. Hühn et al. (eds). Point of
View, Perspective, and Focalization: Modeling Mediacy in Narrative. Berlin: de
Gruyter, 259–78.
Liptay, Fabienne & Yvonne Wolf, eds. (2005). Was stimmt denn jetzt? Unzuverlässiges
Erzählen in Literatur und Film. München: edition text + kritik.
Lothe, Jakob (2000). Narrative in Fiction and Film. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Metz, Christian (1966). “La grande syntagmatique du film narratif.” Communications
No 8, 120–24.
– ([1968] 1974). Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema. New York: Oxford UP.
Panofsky, Erwin ([1937] 1993). Die ideologischen Vorläufer des Rolls-Royce-Kühlers
& Stil und Medium im Film. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 17–48.
Schlickers, Sabine (1997). Verfilmtes Erzählen: Narratologisch-komparative Untersu­
chung zu ‘El beso de la mujer araña’ (Manuel Puig/Héctor Babenco) und ‘Cróni­
ca de una muerte anunciada’ (Gabriel Garcia Márquez/Fraqncesco Rosi). Frank­
furt a.M.: Vervuert.
– (2009). “Focalization, Ocularization and Auricularization in Film and Literature.”
P. Hühn et al. (eds). Point of View, Perspective, and Focalization: Modeling
Medicy in Narrative. Berlin: de Gruyter, 243–58.
Scholes, Robert (1985). “Narration and Narrativity in Film.” G. Mast et al. (eds). Film
Theory and Criticism. New York: Oxford UP, 390–403.
Schweinitz, Jörg (1999). “Zur Erzählforschung in der Filmwissenschaft.” E. Lämmert
(ed). Die erzählerische Dimension: eine Gemeinsamkeit der Künste. Berlin:
Akademie-Verlag, 73–87.
Tomasulo, Frank P. (1986). “Narrate and Describe? Point of View and Narrative Voice
Citizen Kane’s Thatcher Sequence.” Wild Angle 8.3/4, 45–52.
Völker, Katrin (1999). Der erzählte Blick. Eine vergleichende Analyse von Henry
James’ ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ und Jane Campions filmischer Adaption. M.A.-
Hausarbeit U of Hamburg.
227 Narration in Film

5.2 Further Reading

Bach, Manuela (1999). “Dead Men―Dead Narrators: Überlegungen zu Erzählern und
Subjektivität im Film.” W. Grünzweig & A. Solbach (eds). Grenzüberschreitun­
gen: Narratologie im Kontext / Transcending Boundaries: Narratology in Context.
Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 231–46.
Cordes, Stefan (1997). Filmerzählung und Filmerlebnis: Zur rezeptionsorientierten
Analyse narrativer Konstruktionsformen im Spielfilm. Münster: Lit Verlag.
Fleishman, Avrom (1992). Narrated Films. Storytelling Situations in Cinema History.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Griem, Julika & Eckhart Voigts-Virchow (2002). “Filmnarratologie: Grundlagen, Ten­
denzen und Beispielanalysen.” V. Nünning & A. Nünning (eds). Erzähltheorie
transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär. Trier: WVT, 155–83.
Hurst, Matthias (1996). Erzählsituationen in Literatur und Film. Ein Modell zur ver­
gleichenden Analyse von literarischen Texten und filmischen Adaptionen. Tübin­
gen: Niemeyer.
– (2001). “Mittelbarkeit, Perspektive, Subjektivität: Über das narrative Potential des
Spielfilms.” J. Helbig (ed). “Camera doesn’t lie”: Spielarten erzählerischer Unzu­
verlässigkeit im Film. Trier: WVT, 233–53.
Kozloff, Sarah (1988). Invisible Storytellers. Voice-over Narration in American Fiction
Film. Berkeley: U of California P.
Ryan, Marie Laure (2005). “On the Theoretical Foundations of Transmedial Nar­
ratology.” J. Ch. Meister (ed). Narratology beyond Literary Criticism. Mediality,
Disciplinarity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1–23.
Tolton, C. D. E. (1984). “Narration in Film and Prose Fiction: A Mise au point.” Uni­
versity of Toronto Quarterly 53, 264–82.
Wilson, George M. ([1988] 1992). Narration in Light. Studies in Cinematic Point of
View. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
 Narration in Poetry and Drama
Peter Hühn & 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. Lyric poetry in the strict sense (and not only obviously narra-
tive poetry like ballads or verse romances) typically features strings of
primarily mental or psychological happenings perceived through the
consciousness of single speakers 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. Thanks to these features characteristic of narra-tive, 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.

2 Explication

Transgeneric 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). As 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.
229 Narration in Poetry and Drama

If 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 (Schönert 2004) and drama, can be differentiated
semiotically by the extent to which they utilize the range of possible
modes and levels of mediation ( mediacy and narrative mediation).
While novels, short stories, etc. typically make use of all available
levels and modes of mediation (superordinate narrator, subordinate
character’s utterance [→ character], various modes of → focalization),
lyric and dramatic texts can be reconstructed as reduced forms in which
the range of instances of mediation varies in each case. Seen in this
way, lyric texts in the narrower sense (i.e. not just verse narratives or
ballads) are distinguished by a characteristic variability in the extent to
which they use the range of levels and modes of mediation. Like prose
narratives, they can instantiate the two fundamental constituents of the
narrative process, temporal sequentiality and mediation, equally well.
Similarly to the enacted utterances of characters in dramatic texts, how­
ever, they can also seemingly efface the narrator’s level and create the
impression of performative immediacy of speaking. As a result, the
speaker’s voice is felt to emanate from simultaneously occurring expe-
rience and speech. What 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 lacking).
In dramatic texts 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 → narrator) and seemingly without any mediation what­
soever. Nevertheless, selection, segmentation, combination and focus
of the scenes presented imply the existence of a superordinate mediat­
ing instance (Jahn 2001; Weidle 2009) or, in other terms, of the ab­
stract author (→ implied author). In addition, narrative elements and
structures do normally occur at the intradiegetic level of the characters’
utterances, but can also be introduced at the extradiegetic level, such as
prologues and epilogues and comments by stage managers or overt nar­
rators. A 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 text (Fludernik 2008; Nünning & Sommer 2008).
A transgeneric narratology is, however, by no means restricted to
applying narrative theories and terminologies to other genres for anal-
ytical purposes. This approach may have repercussions on classical
 Narration in Poetry and Drama 230

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.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 Dimensions of the Transgeneric Approach to Poetry

The following survey focuses specifically on lyric rather than on nar­

rative poetry such as ballads, verse narratives or verse romances. The
latter lend themselves readily to the concepts generally employed for
prose fiction, albeit with certain differences like the added structuring
device of versification (Kinney 1992; McHale 2005). A transgeneric
application of narratology to lyric poetry is of relatively recent vintage,
the earliest examples dating back only to the 1980s. For the following
discussion, such approaches will be ordered according to the dimen­
sion(s) of the poem qua narrative text to which narratological catego-
ries are applied. These basic dimensions are the levels of the happen­
ings and of their mediation in the form of the poetic text, in particular
the modality of its mediation and the organization of its sequential
structure, as well as the act and process of articulation.
According 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 quality—direct, unfiltered
communication of experience by an author identified with a speaker as
the subject of this experience. It is this traditional notion of poetic im­
mediate subjectivity that several early narratological approaches to lyr­
ic poetry address and try to remedy. Bernhart (1993: 366–68) draws on
Stanzel’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 background the mediator and produce the illu­
sion of immediacy. The merit of Bernhart’s argument is its insistence
on the ineluctably mediate quality of poetry and on the existence, as in
fiction, of an organizing and shaping consciousness, whether visible or
invisible. Owing to his adoption of Stanzel’s one-dimensional model­
ing of mediacy, however, Bernhart refers merely to the variable per­
ceptibility of the narrator, neglecting other modes of mediating such as
231 Narration in Poetry and Drama

the various facets of focalization (e.g. perceptual, psychological or ide-

ological). Seemann (1984: 535–38), likewise rejecting the notion of po­
etic immediacy, derives a much more differentiated hierarchy of levels
of mediation from narrative and drama theory. He distinguishes five
“levels of communication”: (a) characters; (b) narrator/speaker; (c) im­
plied author; (d) author as the creator of the work in question; (e) au­
thor as a biographical person. He 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 work. Of particular interest is his distinction between
speaker and implied author, based on textual signals in the composition
of the work, opening the way to clearer differentiations in the analysis
of → perspective, not only in satiric verse and dramatic monologues,
but more generally, even in cases where these levels appear to collapse
into one another. In a similar manner, Kraan (1991) distinguishes em­
pirical author, implied author and what he calls “lyric subject” (with a
certain affinity to the German concept of lyrisches Ich / “lyrical I”),
stressing the historical variability in the distinctness of these three me­
diators, e.g. their implicit identity in Romanticism or clear differentia-
tion in modernism (222–23).
Subsequent and more comprehensive proposals add further specifi-
cations to such approaches to modeling mediation in lyric poetry by
drawing more extensively on the particularly elaborate inventory of
terms offered by narrative theory. Dismissing conventional views of
the all-embracing emotionality and self-contained artificiality of poetry
that preclude rational analysis, Müller-Zettelmann (2002: 130–31) 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 (139−48). As for the dimension of mediation, she con­
centrates on one singular aspect of lyric poetry: its generic subjectivity
(142–44), which she identifies as part of the larger phenomenon of
“aesthetic illusion” (→ illusion) and analyzes (drawing on Wolf 1998)
as the intended effect of various techniques simulating the general po-
sition-boundedness of human experience as manifest in the spatial,
temporal, cognitive, emotional and ideological restriction of perception
and consciousness. This effect of aesthetic illusion, she argues, is fur­
ther heightened by self-referential artificiality in poems where the
speaker presents himself as a creative poet. In Genette’s terms, this
phenomenon could be classified as the coincidence of speaker’s voice
with internal focalization and simultaneous narration. Despite her ini­
tial comprehensive claim, Müller-Zettelmann refrains from exploring
the wide range of poetic mediation with the various possible constella­
 Narration in Poetry and Drama 232

tions of voice, focalization and time of narration, singling out one spe­
cial albeit significant case: generic subjectivity.
A systematic all-encompassing application of narratology, differen­
tiating two basic aspects of mediation, agents or instances and levels of
mediation and types of perspective, is outlined by Hühn & Schönert
(2002: 295−98) and Hühn (2004: 147−51). Firstly, the four agents lo-
cated on four hierarchical levels largely coincide with those named by
Seemann and Kraan: biographical author; abstract (or implied) author;
speaker/narrator; protagonist or character in the happenings. Secondly,
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). For the notoriously tricky problem of distinguishing speaker and
abstract author and of relating focalization to agent (e.g. whether to
speaker or character), they introduce the operation of “attribution” per­
formed by the reader in accordance with his particular understanding of
the text. These two sets of differential categories, in conjunction 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. Hence the seemingly unmediated self-expression of
the poet in a simultaneously ongoing experience characteristic of many
Romantic poems, for example, can be re-described as the manipulated
collapse of the agents/instances and levels of protagonist, speaker and
author as well as the contrived congruence of voice and focalization,
thus creating the effect of unmediated subjectivity.
The other dimension of the poetic text, sequentiality, has hitherto
been widely neglected in traditional approaches to poetry analysis,
even though it constitutes a central part of a poem’s meaning. For 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. Contrary to mediation with
the highly differentiated system of relevant categories already devel-
oped by narratology, the dimension of sequentiality lacks a broadly ac­
cepted narratological terminology. Because of this, critics are left to
develop categories of their own or to draw on a variety of sources from
elsewhere.
Stillinger (1985: 98–9) sketches five concrete types of plot in Ro­
mantic poetry: conflict between binary forces (mostly of a mental kind)
and its resolution; journeys or quests; confrontation between imagina­
tion and reality with resultant disillusionment; violation and its con­
sequences; competition between spatial divisions. From these he ab­
233 Narration in Poetry and Drama

stracts two general patterns: (a) progress from a state of equilibrium to

disturbance to a final resolution; (b) encounter of a protagonist’s desire
or goal with resistance and its resolution. This is an early and rudi­
mentary attempt, loosely inspired by action models applied to prose
fiction (Propp, Bremond), in need of further refinement and adaptation.
Weststeijn (1989), 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. Müller-Zettelmann
(2002: 133–35), 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 (149–50). This same concept was
earlier proposed by Semino (1995) as a practical instrument for the de­
tailed analysis of poetry, without, however, linking it to narrative.
Schema theory, derived from cognitive psychology, explains the read-
er’s comprehension of texts as an operation of activating and applying
relevant prior knowledge. According to this theory, knowledge is
shown to be organized into patterns called schemata: flexible and dy­
namic structures which texts may confirm or modify in the course of
“schema reinforcement” and “schema refreshment” respectively (85–
7). The concept of schema facilitates precise description of the sequen­
tial dimension of poetic texts.
A systematic approach to modeling sequentiality combining schema
theory with Lotman’s concept of sujet (in the sense of transgression of
a boundary or deviation from a norm) is put forward by Hühn &
Schönert (2002), Hühn (2004, 2005) and Hühn & Kiefer (2005). The
notion of cognitive schemata, especially in the further distinction
between frames (stereotypical knowledge about settings, situations and
themes) and scripts (knowledge 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 context, since such → schemata are al­
ways formed by and dependent on experience within a particular socie-
ty and culture. Because of the poetic convention of brevity, abstract­
ness and situational and personal indeterminacy, poems are usually less
circumstantial than prose fiction in presenting textual triggers for acti-
vating frames and scripts, thus requiring greater effort on the reader’s
part to infer the relevant schemata. Combining schema theory with Lot­
man’s model provides a means for identifying the turning point in a
poem, a decisive or merely inferable change from one state (attitude,
 Narration in Poetry and Drama 234

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 text, its raison d’être (→ tellability). Events are
ascribed to a figure, an agent who undergoes a decisive change. Ac­
cording to the level of the poetic text at which the figure is located and
at which the decisive turn takes place, three basic event types or planes
of eventfulness can be distinguished (Hühn & Kiefer 2005: 7, 246–51):
(a) “events in the happenings,” ascribed to storyworld incidents with
the protagonist or persona as agent; (b) “presentation events,” located
at the discourse level with the speaker/narrator as agent enacting a
“story of narration”; in addition, “mediation events” can be marked off
as exceptional 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
speaker but to the abstract author (as when the speaker’s lament about
his artistic sterility is mediated in the form of a perfect poem); (c) “re­
ception events,” which take place during the reading process with the
reader as agent in cases when neither the protagonist nor the speaker is
willing or able to undergo a (necessary or desirable) change, an event
the reader is meant to perform vicariously, as in dramatic monologues
(→ event and eventfulness).
Analysis of poetry in English (Hühn 2005: 167–68; Hühn & Kiefer
2005: 233–35) and in German (Schönert et al. 2007: 311–13) bears out
a number of characteristic tendencies in which narration in lyric poems
seems to differ from that in novels and stories. To name just one such
tendency, there is a preference (in certain periods) for stories in which
simultaneous narration aspires to merge with the presentation event:
the speaker’s process of reflection and articulation is performed in the
present, while moving toward a decisive turn in his attitude or insight.
This presentation event is achieved at the very end of the poem or,
more characteristically, the poem breaks off before it is achieved, the
change being too difficult to bring about or shied away from because of
the risks involved. To negotiate this problematic transition, the speaker
often narrates the further movement prospectively.
In 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 (Müller-Zettelmann 2000: 4;
Hühn & Schönert 2002: 287–88) has yet to bear its full fruit. Even 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 contexts.
235 Narration in Poetry and Drama

3.2 Dimensions of the Transgeneric Approach to Drama

Most categories commonly used for the analysis of narrative fiction

can equally be applied to drama, as Richardson (2007: 142–51) argues
convincingly. This is valid for representations of character, plot, begin­
nings and endings, time and space as well as for fictional causality
(defined by Richardson as the “canon of probability” [150] to which
plays and novels adhere), narrative framing and narration. Whereas
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 context 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 Wilder’s Our Town, on frame narratives and embed­
ded narratives, monologues, soliloquies, asides, audience address, self-
reflective or meta-dramatic comments, instances of → metalepsis as
well as on self-referential techniques such as the play-within-the-play.
Recent research also suggests a distinction between mimetic and die­
getic → narrativity (Nünning & Sommer 2008: 337–39) and combines
the analysis of narration in drama with performative approaches to the
study of discourse in narrative fiction (Fludernik 2008: 367–69).
Historically, there has been a tendency in drama criticism to regard
epic elements and violation of the Aristotelian 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
1877). This view was challenged radically by 20th-century playwrights
such as Beckett and, of course, Brecht’s programmatic use of alienating
techniques―frequently narrative or meta-dramatic in nature―which
defined his internationally acclaimed notion of an epic theater.
Throughout the 20th century, narrative experiments in drama have con­
tributed to the emergence of a canon of plays (including Brecht’s
Caucasian Chalk Circle, Williams’s The Glass Menagerie and Shaf­
fer’s Amadeus) routinely quoted in narratological accounts of drama.
The development of drama and theater in the second half of the 20th
century, however, should not be reduced to an increased awareness of
its narrativity or to self-reflective 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 “post-dramat-
 Narration in Poetry and Drama 236

ic” theater which abandons conventional story-based and character-ori­

ented dramaturgy (Lehmann 1999).
The frequent occurrence of narrative or epic elements in performed
or presented narratives (theater or film) led Chatman (1990) to question
the strict separation of mimesis and diegesis favored by Genette. In­
stead of identifying the former with showing and preserving the latter
for the verbal mediation of narrative content, Chatman points to the
fact that both modes (showing and telling) can be used to transmit a
story. Thus, a narrator might present a story “through a teller or a
shower or some combination of both” (113). In order to avoid termino­
logical confusion, Chatman suggests the new umbrella term “pre-
senter” to designate his broader conception of narrator which subsumes
both the narrator in Genette’s narrower sense of verbal narration by an­
thropomorphic narrating instances (a notion compatible with Stanzel’s
definition of mediacy as the sine qua non of fictional narration), on the
one hand, and “a kind of narration that is not performed by a recogniz­
ably human agency” (115), on the other. The latter type of narrator may
be said to “tell” (or “show” or “present”) the majority of enacted sto-
ries on stage and screen. Chatman’s main argument in favor of his ap­
proach (besides terminological clarity) is theoretical consistency:
“Once we define narrative as the composite of story and discourse (on
the basis of its unique double chronology), then logically, at least, nar­
ratives can be said to be actualizable on the stage or in other iconic me­
dia” (114).
This idea is further developed by Jahn (2001), who emphasizes the
diegetic nature of stage directions and compares the multiple levels of
communication within dramatic texts with narrative embedding in the
novel. He also modifies Chatman’s taxonomy of text types (1990: 115)
by introducing a “playscript mode” (to which he assigns all utterances
belonging to the “secondary text”) and by replacing Chatman’s subdi­
vision of “diegetic” and “mimetic” with the distinction between “writ­
ten/printed” and “performed” narratives. More recently, Nünning &
Sommer (2008) have argued that plays make 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 extend 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). Another direction
is taken by Fludernik (2008), whose notion of experientiality paves the
way for a cognitive narratological approach to drama. She revises the
237 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:
“In drama, there is a real performance involving actors; in a perform­
ance of narrative, the performer and audience ‘take over’ the roles of
narrator and narratee. What 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” (365).
Whereas narratologists from Chatman and Richardson to Jahn and
Fludernik have repeatedly emphasized the narrativity of drama from a
variety of perspectives, there are also critical voices rejecting the idea
of a narratology of drama (or at least parts of it). Referring to Stanzel’s
notion of mediacy, Rajewsky (2007: 58) insists on the distinction
between narrative communication in the novel and non-mediated com­
munication in drama, thus excluding the possibility of heterodiegetic
narration on the stage (where, she argues, discourse is always produced
by participants of the storyworld). This view is supported by Schenk-
Haupt (2007: 30), who maintains that “extradiegetic narration is im­
possible in dramatic writing.”
Proponents of a narratology of drama, however, generally agree that
both Genette’s notion of diegetic narration as a verbal transmission of
narrative content and Stanzel’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. There are several more recent (and more
convincing) alternatives to Genette’s and Stanzel’s definitions of nar­
rative available, including Chatman’s revision of Genette’s concept and
Jahn’s subsequent modification of Chatman, Ryan’s transgeneric and
transmedial definitions of narrative as a “cognitive template” (Ryan
2005; Nünning & Sommer 2008: 333), or Fludernik’s “natural” narra­
tology, based on her definitions of narrativity and experientiality.
Therefore, attempts to prove transgeneric narratology wrong by point­
ing out its incompatibility with Genette (Schenk-Haupt 2007: 31–2) or
Stanzel (Rajewsky 2007: 58) can hardly be convincing. Schenk-
Haupt’s conclusion that there “is no direct extradiegetic communica­
tion in dramatic writing―authorial characters, embedded stories, epic
devices, and the quirky expansion of stage directions merely create the
aesthetic illusion of an extradiegetic agent speaking” (2007: 37) is val­
id for all narratological concepts: they all refer to effects produced by
verbal, visual or auditive signs.
 Narration in Poetry and Drama 238

Rajewsky (2007) 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. For this reason, she re­
jects Jahn’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 seeks to overcome (61). Schenk-
Haupt (2007) offers a similar argument: “If we accepted that ... the
secondary text took over a narrative, mediating function, this would
eventually lead to a confusion of generic boundaries” (36). The dis­
agreement seems to be partly due to the fact that the discussion of the
relationship between primary and secondary text is merged with the
text vs. performance debate and/or with generic issues.
Ultimately, the existence (or absence) of a narrating instance in
drama is a matter of perspective: it depends both on the critic’s chosen
theoretical framework (Genette/Stanzel vs. Chatman/Jahn/Ryan/Flu-
dernik) and on his or her main research interests (narrative vs. gen-
res/media). Admittedly, narratology sometimes tends to produce coun-
ter-intuitive concepts, and a play’s “superordinate narrative agent”
(Jahn 2001: 672) or “superordinate narrative system” (Weidle 2009)
may easily fall into that category for critics more concerned with per­
formance and performativity. Transgeneric 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 non-literary discourses.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

4.1 Topics for Further Investigation: Poetry

The relation of the various event types with different historical epochs
and with different cultures and cultural traditions; 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.
239 Narration in Poetry and Drama

4.2 Topics for Further Investigation: Drama

The compatibility or mutual dependency of transgeneric and transmedi­

al theories of narrative; a comparative discussion of diegetic narrativity
in dramas, play texts and performances; a revision of structuralist nar­
ratological approaches to drama from a cognitive and pragmatic/se­
mantic perspective.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited: Poetry

Bernhart, Wolfgang (1993). “Überlegungen zur Lyriktheorie aus erzähltheoretischer
Sicht.” H. Foltinek et al. (eds). Tales and ‘their telling difference’: Festschrift für
Franz K. Stanzel. Heidelberg: Winter, 359–75.
Hühn, Peter (2004). “Transgeneric Narratology: Applications to Lyric Poetry.” J. Pier
(ed). The Dynamics of Narrative Form. Berlin: de Gruyter, 139–58.
– (2005). “Plotting the Lyric: Forms of Narration in Poetry.” E. Müller-Zettelmann &
M. Rubik (eds). Theory into Poetry. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 147–72.
– & Jens Kiefer (2005). The Narratological Analysis of Lyric Poetry: Studies in Eng­
lish Poetry from the 16th to the 20th Century. Berlin: de Gruyter.
– & Jörg Schönert (2002). “Zur narratologischen Analyse von Lyrik.” Poetica 34,
287–305.
Kinney, Clare R. (1992). Strategies of Poetic Narrative: Chaucer, Spenser, Milton,
Eliot. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Kraan, Menno (1991). “Towards a Model of Lyric Communication: Some Historical
and Theoretical Remarks.” Russian Literature 30, 199–230.
McHale, Brian (2005). “Narrative in Poetry.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Ency-
clopedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 356−58.
Müller-Zettelmann, Eva (2000). Lyrik und Metalyrik: Theorie einer Gattung und ihrer
Selbstbespiegelung anhand von Beispielen aus der englisch- und deutschsprachi­
gen Dichtkunst. Heidelberg: Winter.
– (2002). “Lyrik und Narratologie.” A. Nünning & V. Nünning (eds). Erzähltheorie
transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär. Trier: WVT, 129–53.
Schönert, Jörg (2004). “Normative Vorgaben als ‘Theorie der Lyrik’? Vorschläge zu
einer texttheoretischen Revision.” G. Frank & W. Lukas (eds). Norm―Gren-
ze―Abweichung. Kultursemiotische Studien zu Literatur, Medien und Wirtschaft.
Michael Titzmann zum 60. Geburtstag. Passau: Stutz, 303–18.
– et al. (2007). Lyrik und Narratologie: Text-Analysen zu deutschsprachigen Gedich-
ten vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Seemann, Klaus Dieter (1984). “Die Kommunikationsstruktur im lyrischen Gedicht.”
W. Schmid & R. Döring-Smirnov (eds). Text, Symbol, Weltmodell: Johannes
Holthusen zum 60. Geburtstag. München: Sager, 533–54.
Semino, Elena (1995). “Schema theory and the analysis of text worlds in poetry.” Lan­
guage and Literature 4, 79–108.
 Narration in Poetry and Drama 240

Stillinger, Jack (1985). “The Plots of Romantic Poetry.” College Literature 12, 95–112.
Weststeijn, Willem G. (1989). “Plot Structure in Lyric Poetry: An Analysis of Three
Exile Poems by Aleksandr Puškin.” Russian Literature 26, 509–22.
Wolf, Werner (1998). “Aesthetic Illusion in Lyric Poetry?” Poetica 30, 18−56.

5.2 Further Reading: Poetry

Adam, Jean-Michel (2002). “Conditions et degrés de narrativation du poème.” Degrés:
Revue de Synthèse à Orientation Sémiologique 111, a 1–a 26.
Kafalenos, Emma (2006). Narrative Causalities. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 157−78.
McHale, Brian (2009). “Beginning to Think about Narrative in Poetry.” Narrative 17,
11–27.
Schönert, Jörg (2008). “Auteur empirique, auteur implicite et moi lyrique.” J. Pier (ed).
Théorie du récit. L’apport de la recherche allemande. Villeneuve d’Asqc: Presses
Universitaires du Septentrion, 84–96.
Semino, Elena (1997). Language and World Creation in Poems and Other Texts. Lon­
don: Longman.
Simon, Ralf (2004). “Handlungstheorie des Lyrischen: mit Analysen zu Hölderlins
Heidelberg, Mörikes Die schöne Buche und Georges Wir werden heute nicht zum
garten gehen.” Rhetorik: Ein internationales Jahrbuch 23, 50−80.

5.3 Works Cited: Drama

Chatman, Seymour (1990). Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Delius, Nikolaus (1877). “Die epischen Elemente in Shakespeare’s Dramen.”
Shakespeare-Jahrbuch 12, 1–28.
Fludernik, Monika (2008). “Narrative and Drama.” J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa (eds).
Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 353–81.
Jahn, Manfred (2001). “Narrative Voice and Agency in Drama: Aspects of a Narrato­
logy of Drama.” New Literary History 32, 659–79.
Lehmann, Hans-Thies ([1999] 2001). Postdramatisches Theater. Frankfurt a.M.: Ver­
lag der Autoren.
Nünning, Ansgar & Roy Sommer (2008). “Diegetic and Mimetic Narrativity: Some
Further Steps towards a Narratology of Drama.” J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa (eds).
Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 329–52.
Rajewsky, Irina O. (2007). “Von Erzählern, die (nichts) vermitteln: Überlegungen zu
grundlegenden Annahmen der Dramentheorie im Kontext einer transmedialen Nar­
ratologie.” Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur 117, 25–68.
Richardson, Brian (2007). “Drama and Narrative.” D. Herman (ed). The Cambridge
Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 142–55.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (2005). “On the Theoretical Foundations of Transmedial Narrato­
logy.” J. Ch. Meister (ed). Narratology beyond Literary Criticism: Mediality, Dis­
ciplinarity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1–23.
Schenk-Haupt, Stefan (2007). “Narrativity in Dramatic Writing: Towards a General
Theory of Genres.” Anglistik 18.2, 25–42.
241 Narration in Poetry and Drama

Weidle, Roland (2009). “Organizing the Perspectives: Focalization and the Superordin­
ate Narrative System in Drama.” P. Hühn et al. (eds). Point of View, Perspective,
and Focalization. Modeling Mediation in Narrative. Berlin: de Gruyter, 221–42.

5.4 Further Reading: Drama

de Jong, Irene J. F. (1991). Narrative in Drama: The Art of the Euripidean Messenger
Speech. Leiden: Brill.
Elam, Keir (1980). The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London: Methuen.
Garner, Stanton B. (1989). The Absent Voice: Narrative Comprehension in the Thea-
ter. Urbana: U of Illinois P.
Hauthal, Janine (2008). Metadrama und (Text-)Theatralität: (Selbst-)Reflexionen einer
intermedialen literarischen Gattung am Beispiel englischer und nordamerikani-
scher Meta- und Postdramatik. Trier: WVT.
Korthals, Holger (2003). Zwischen Drama und Erzählung: Ein Beitrag zur Theorie
geschehensdarstellender Literatur. Berlin: Schmidt.
Morrison, Kristin (1983). Canters and Chronicles: The Use of Narrative in the Plays
of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
Pavel, Thomas G. (1985). The Poetics of Plot: The Case of English Renaissance
Drama. Manchester: Manchester UP.
Pfister, Manfred ([1977] 1988). The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Cambridge: Cam­
bridge UP.
Ryan, Marie-Laure, ed. (2004). Narrative across Media: The Languages of Story-
telling. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Sommer, Roy (2005). “Drama and Narrative.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge En­
cyclopedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 119–24.
 Narration in Various Disciplines
Norbert Meuter

1 Definition

Whenever we discuss the meaning and function of narrative in the ac-

ademic disciplines, we need to distinguish between two main aspects.
On the one hand, narratives are the subject area, or at least an impor-
tant issue among others, in many disciplines, without this being expli­
citly thematized in every case. Here, one would have to distinguish
whether these disciplines find their “narrative objects” more or less
ready-made, or whether they themselves create these totally or at least
partially. On the other hand, implicit references to narratives have
sparked a growing tendency towards explicit reflection upon various
aspects of narration. In conjunction with this reflection, the phenome-
non of → narrativity itself is thematized, and with it content- or me-
thodology-oriented concepts of narrativity are developed within the
varied frameworks of the disciplines in question.

2 Explication

Narrative as a phenomenon has a pivotal role in literary studies and

history, for narratives have always formed a key subject of these dis­
ciplines. In the field of literature, narrative objects are fully formed
from the outset (at least if one excludes interpretation and historical
contextualization from the concept of the literary text), whereas the
historical disciplines need to construct these objects, if not completely,
then at least to a large extent. Accordingly, it is in these two disciplines
that we find the first fundamental theoretical discussions of the concept
of narrativity, making them the leading disciplines in the study of nar­
rativity. Further important impulses have come from psychology, philo­
sophy and the philosophy of science. Even beyond these disciplines,
we not only find narrative objects which are to a large extent unspe­
cified, but also explicit content- and methodology-oriented discussions
of narrative in sociology, theology, pedagogy, ethics, psychoanalysis,
art, and art history as well as law studies (Mitchell ed. 1981; Polking­
243 Narration in Various Disciplines

horne 1988; Nash ed. 1990; Müller-Funk 2002). It is therefore justified

to speak of a “narrative turn” (Kreiswirth 2005) with its underlying
assumption that the narrative paradigm may serve to reformulate the
scientific and rational nature specific to the humanities (Meuter 2004).
Today, the varied approaches to the theory of narrative in the humani-
ties constitute the interdisciplinary study of narratology (Prince 1997;
Phelan & Rabinowitz eds. 2005; Herman et al. eds. 2005; Kindt &
Müller eds. 2003). In the natural sciences, however, the study of
→ narratology remains to a large extent a desideratum. So far, it is only
in medicine that rudimentary attempts have been made; however, these
concern aspects of the doctor-patient relationship rather than the core
problems of narrative. Systems theory might prove an innovative ap­
proach in that it presupposes such a high level of abstraction as to en­
able a shared sphere of reflection for both the natural sciences and the
humanities.

3 Concepts and their History

3.1 Literary Studies

Literary studies deserve to be called the leading discipline in the study

of narrative, with Aristotle’s Poetics constituting a seminal source. The
triadic structure of classical tragedy, based on the terms “beginning,”
“middle” and “end,” can be applied to any kind of narratable material
(Straub 1998). Significant beginning- and end-markers make the totali-
ty (holos) of the story emerge from the sequence of experiences. A
story only becomes meaningful through the selection and combination
of happenings and actions (mythos). These do not follow one upon the
other in a random sequence or simply “one after the other” (meta), but
rather “one out of the other” (dia), so that an intrinsic connection is
made between them. Seen as a whole, there emerges a suspenseful tra­
jectory or development from beginning to end with one or more disrup­
tions and moderate or radical changes in direction (peripeteia). For
Aristotle, a narrative is constituted by establishing a meaningful, cohe-
sive, probable, and possibly even necessary order out of dissonant,
fragmented, merely episodic, accidental or contingent elements (Halli­
well 1987; Ricœur 1983). Thus, any sequence of actions and happen­
ings which is discernible as a unit and has a temporal organization as
well as being perceived as meaningful can be called a narrative.
In the 20th century, the German hermeneutic tradition, harking back
to Aristotle, formulates “elements of narration” (Bauformen des
Erzählens, Lämmert 1955) which are then reformulated as a general
 Narration in Various Disciplines 244

“theory of narration” (Theorie des Erzählens, Stanzel 1979). The focus

is on the relationship between narration and temporality, on the signi­
ficance and function of the → narrator, and on inquiries into the ele­
ments and structures of the narrative (Martínez & Scheffel 1999). (Re­
garding other traditions, e.g. formalist or structuralist, cf. Herman
1999; Nünning 2003.)
In the course of this development, narrative theorists in literary
studies have increasingly had to grapple with the fact that the authors
of Modernism and Postmodernism tend to break down the classic Ari-
stotelian structures in order to construct “anti-narratives.” This tend­
ency manifests itself for example in the refusal to meet such structural
requirements as including a beginning and an end except on a purely
formal level and, more importantly, in the destruction of a suspenseful
fable (plot, story, intrigue) with a clear climax or anti-climax. In the
wake of this development, the sovereignty of the narrator, even of the
→ author (Foucault 1969), is regarded as increasingly problematic.
Still, much controversy surrounds the debate as to whether the post­
modern practice of narration really constitutes the demise of the Ari-
stotelian theoretical tradition or whether it is simply an extension and
reformation of this tradition (Gibson 1996; Currie 1998).

3.2 The Arts

In the context of the arts, the study of narrativity can turn to Lessing’s
famous Laocoön (1766). According to the definition proposed by this
essay for demarcating the fine arts from the literary arts (→ narration
in various media), painting and sculpture are marked by spatiality and
synchronicity, whereas temporality and diachronicity are the features
of poetry. The simultaneous arrangement of shapes and colors depicts
objects or bodies, while the successive arrangement of articulated
sounds results in the narration of actions. The visual arts can mediate
actions only indirectly through the depiction of bodies, whereas in po­
etry a body can be portrayed only through the narration of actions. Ac­
cording to Lessing, the painter or sculptor must therefore find the
“pregnant moment” that condenses the temporal movement in contrast
to the poet, who must integrate the “defining trait” of a body into narra­
tion of the action. Moving beyond Lessing, other narrative means that
allow the visual arts to depict temporal sequences might be taken into
account (Pochat 1996).
245 Narration in Various Disciplines

3.3 The Historical Sciences

Traditionally, the literary and historical disciplines are distinguished

from each other on the basis of the different relationships of their sub­
ject area with the reality of what is represented. Aristotle’s Poetics
(Halliwell 1987) already formulates the assumption that the role of fic­
tion―in contrast to historiography―is not to convey what really
happened, but rather what, under the given circumstances, could hap­
pen. At the same time, fiction has a generalizable, representative quali-
ty: the “actual” (ta genomena) of history vs. the “possible” (ta dynata)
of fiction. Still, the question remains whether it is actually possible to
differentiate clearly between historical or factual and literary or fiction­
al narratives (→ fictional vs. factual narration). Goethe’s categories,
poetry and truth (Dichtung und Wahrheit), might well be more closely
linked than they appear to be at first glance. As for philosophical con­
tributions to this debate (Ricœur 1985), they presuppose an ontological
and epistemological cross-over relationship between history and fiction
(cf. also Danto 1965; Veyne 1971).
Any methodology of the historical sciences must therefore also ex­
amine the question of how and to what extent its object can or must be
represented by narrative means. Many authors contend that narratives
are a suitable and even necessary medium for recording, describing,
and explaining historical developments (Rüsen 1986, 1990). Others
suggest a type of “historical argumentation” that in logical terms is in­
dependent of any form of narrative (Kocka 1980), an argument sup-
ported by the positions of the Ecole des Annales (cf. Ricœur 1983).
White (1973) formulated the critical position that the great historians
of the 19th century modeled their works on the pattern of certain narra-
tive genres (romance, comedy, tragedy, satire). According to White, the
real events of the past are molded into an artificial narrative form, giv­
ing them a certain meaning they did not inherently possess. Since every
narrative form inevitably transports certain normative statements and
value judgments, White (1987) regards this molding of reality to create
narrative patterns of meaning as a potentially totalitarian act.
It cannot be denied that grands récits (Lyotard 1979) are potential
instruments of power. However, any critique of history as narrative
from the position of ideological criticism as a principle is a question­
able exercise (Straub 2001). Such is the case especially if this critique
relies on a contestable dualism between “artificial forms” and “real
events,” as argued by White and others (Mink 1978) who posit that hu­
man experience and actions do not have inherent narrative qualities but
are reshaped through narrative after the event. Consequently, the
 Narration in Various Disciplines 246

concept of narrativity should be limited to explicit forms of (oral or

written) narration, such that the existence of “untold stories” is ne-
gated: stories are never lived, but told. Life itself is seen as without be­
ginning, middle and end, nor is it tragic, amusing, suspenseful, etc.
Other authors (MacIntyre 1981; Carr 1986; Bruner 1990; Gergen
1998) take a diametrically opposed view. For them, narrative structures
are not the product of literary writers or historians. On the contrary,
stories are already formed in actions and life cycles: stories are lived
before they are told. Therefore, narrativity is not primarily an aesthetic
category, but is rooted in practice. This means that the historical sci­
ences are not merely allowed to resort to narration, but are required to
do so if they are to do their subject matter justice. A simple chronicle
in which events are simply linked together by dates may be more ob­
jective, but this cannot generate understanding because such under­
standing can be achieved only if a specifically narrative connection is
established between the recorded dates.
The configuration of this connection―and the selective process be­
hind it―will inevitably be influenced by the “master plots” (Schwem­
mer 1987) of the cultural environment in which it is created as well as
by the individual personality of the historian and the scope of his
knowledge, interests, etc. White seems justified in his contention that
narrativization of historical events comes at the expense of objectivity,
but one has to take into account that historical events fundamentally
differ from the natural events that occur in physics, for example, since
such events possess no ontological or epistemological objectivity out­
side of a frame of reference. A historical narrative and its portrayal of a
sequence of events do not form a mimetic relationship but a “metaphor­
ical relationship” (Ricœur 1985): narrative makes visible something
that would otherwise remain unperceived (cf. also Jaeger 2002).

3.4 Psychology

The concept of narrativity is increasingly being used as a key not only

in the historical and literary disciplines, but also in (hermeneutically-
oriented) psychology. Narrative psychology has emerged as an inde­
pendent discipline, emphasizing―in contrast to the dominant objectiv­
ist and positivist orientation in the field―the significance of forms
which are meaningful for human experience and actions (Sarbin ed.
1986; Polkinhorne 1988). Narrative psychology regards narrative forms
as a genuine focus for psychological research in so far as the cognitive
and emotional processes of consciousness are generated on the basis of
and through these forms.
247 Narration in Various Disciplines

Bruner (1990) has influenced the debate with his distinction

between paradigmatic and narrative modes of thought. In the paradig­
matic mode, individual events or objects are linked with conceptual
categories during the thought process, while in the narrative mode,
events are perceived as elements of a story which contribute to its de­
velopment. This concerns the cognitive ability to configure diverse
events and actions into larger temporal and meaningful units—a capa­
city for narrative structuring (emplotment) which is obviously one of
the fundamental capabilities of human consciousness. Bruner also ex­
amines the question of whether this ability is genetic and universal or
acquired and learnt, i.e. shaped in different ways by the cultural envi-
ronment. His position is one of compromise: according to him, we all
have an innate predisposition for telling and understanding stories, but
this must be developed through cultural models and social interaction
into an active competence.
A number of studies in developmental psychology on the formation
of narrative competence have been published (e.g. Wolf 2001). These
studies examine the ability to perceive a range of temporally disparate
events as a meaningful and progressive series and also the ability to
construct such a meaningful series (→ event and eventfulness). The fo­
cal point here is not well-constructed literary tales, but simple everyday
stories. In such studies, the Aristotelian “middle” represents the turning
point of the story in which something surprising, unexpected or inter­
esting constitutes the center around which other happenings are
grouped. Empirical studies show that children generally acquire the
competence that enables mastery of this basic narrative model between
the ages of seven and ten. This is preceded by a development which be­
gins with the ability to string together events in a merely linear fashion,
followed by an increasing use of temporal and logical or content-based
links and meaningful grouping into episodes until the stage is reached
where genuine narrative plots are understood and actively mastered.
One specific focus of psychological studies bearing on narrative is
the significance of narrative forms for the understanding of emotions.
In these studies, emotions are not regarded as isolated and disjointed
phenomena but as situationally and socially contextualized. We are
able to understand emotions only if we can relate them to our own be­
havior and experience and to that of the people we interact with within
a narrative frame of reference (Sarbin 1989; Gergen 1998), a finding
that appears to be a cultural universal (Hogan 2003). Emotions are
made understandable through stories and in turn, stories also generate
emotions, making us feel angry, sad, happy, etc. This is due to the fact
that stories are “presentative symbolizations” (Langer 1948). Even
 Narration in Various Disciplines 248

though they rely on the discursive medium of language, stories speak to

us on a far deeper emotional level than discursive symbolizations such
as abstract argumentation or scientific theories can ever do.

3.5 Psychoanalysis

The realization of the importance of narrative in the field of psychol-

ogy has generated therapeutic, and especially psychoanalytical, con­
cepts which interpret the therapeutic process in its entirety with the
help of narrative categories (Boothe 1994). Accordingly, neurotic con­
ditions are rooted in untold, repressed stories, which in the course of
analysis need to be transformed into an explicit story in order for the
subject to come to terms with past events (Schafer 1992). This being
the case, narratives have not only an informative function, but also a
presentational one. The analyst must thus take note not just of what is
told but also how it is told, taking into account both the content and the
style of narrative self-presentation and its performative or theatrical
manifestations (Lorenzer 1973, 1979), since this is precisely the area
where the patient’s unconscious identity and personality traits are artic­
ulated. There appear to be increasing discussions of the active role of
the analyst during this process. Initially, the analyst must record the
free associations of the patient with “evenly-hovering attention” (Freud
1912), after which this material is condensed into narratives thanks to
the focus provided by the analyst. These narratives in turn can become
paradigmatic case studies and, as a possibly problematic result, may in­
fluence the analyst’s focusing acts (Thomä & Kächele 2006).

3.6 Philosophy

Plato refers to stories and myths that serve as a point of departure and
exemplification for his abstract teachings, a tradition that continues in
philosophy even today. Underlying this practice is the idea that the
function of narrative is to provide concrete examples in support of con­
ceptual arguments. Hegel formulates the insight that philosophical con­
cepts can themselves only be understood as the end result of their own
story (Plotnitsky 2005a).
Husserl’s disciple Schapp (1953) was the first to develop a distinc-
tive “philosophy of stories.” According to his main thesis, the human
being is not the autonomous subject of his own constructions of mean­
ing, but throughout his life is inextricably “entangled in stories” which
are the prerequisite for the formation of his identity and subjectivity.
Since, according to Schapp, stories are the fundamental medium
without which we would not be able to perceive meaning, one is justi­
249 Narration in Various Disciplines

fied―with reference to Heidegger―in speaking of a “narrative being-

in-the-world.”
This philosophical point of departure raises questions concerning
the constructive character of narrative. Explicitly told stories are sym­
bolic constructions. The question is whether, and in what way, these
constructions are connected with the experience and behavior of the in­
dividuals concerned. From a philosophical perspective, an assumed du­
alism of artificial form and real events (cf. 2.2 above) appears equally
contestable. Human experience and behavior do not show well-organ­
ized narrative patterns comparable to the careful compositions of fic­
tion and history writing. Rather, the identifying and shaping of a narra-
tive structure of a certain complexity, with a clear point of view, an in­
dividual line of suspense, a characteristic peripeties, etc., is always the
result of an active endeavor. On the other hand, experience and behav-
ior cannot exist without some kind of structure. If, for example, one
presupposes that to act means (at least partly) to follow a project, this
already constitutes a complex achievement, even on the level of action.
There is constant interference in and interruption of the project in hand
by other experiences, actions and projects. In addition, it is often not
clear from the beginning whether one is actually engaged in a project at
all. Without at least a rudimentary narrative structure, it would not be
possible to find one’s way even on the level of action (Danto 1965;
Carr 1986). The idea of a single act seen in isolation is therefore a false
abstraction, and for this reason, the concept of story is as fundamental a
philosophical term as the concept of action (MacIntyre 1981; Schwem­
mer 1987).
With Ricœur, who has put forth what is perhaps the most compre­
hensive philosophical theory of narrativity (1983/85), it is possible to
argue a case for a kind of compromise. Ricœur draws on the classic
philosophers that are relevant here (Aristotle, Augustine, Dilthey,
Husserl, Heidegger, Schapp) as well as on literary and historical the­
ory, integrating them into a comprehensive narratological hermeneut­
ics. Its key theoretical concept is the three-part mimesis, the aspects of
which are not seen in a hierarchical relationship, but in an integrative
one. Accordingly, the composition of an explicit story (Mimesis II) is
always a creative act that provides a new and unique view of reality,
but at the same time, this always follows on from something that has
gone before this process. Every story points to a “before.” The referent
in this relation (Mimesis I) is the “lived world,” which is itself already
organized as narrative, at least in part. Because of their symbolic and
temporal aspects, real-life actions have an inherently pre-narrative
structure. Every explicit story, on the other hand, meets its intended
 Narration in Various Disciplines 250

target only when it is perceived by a recipient (Mimesis III). Reception

is made possible because of the inherent openness of the explicit sto-
ries in general terms. These stories―regardless of how precisely and
concretely they might be told―contain no truly individual events, but
simply schematized conceptions that have to be concretized by the re­
cipient. The three types of mimesis form a temporal unit as a circular
cultural process that is constantly evolving: through reception, the ex­
plicit narrative configuration once again becomes part of the real-life
experience of the experiencing and acting recipient who can expand,
confirm or vary the pre-existing pre-narrative structures. Such a newly
and differently (re-)configured real-life situation in turn forms the basis
for the next explicit configuration. Narrative therefore involves medi­
ation between common cultural standards and exceptional deviations
from these standards, hence a complex interplay of tradition and inno-
vation (→ mediacy and narrative mediation).
In this model, the narrative “seeing-things-together” (prendre-en­
semble) can be understood as the construction and establishment of a
meaningful and more or less coherent or probable order created out of
dissonant, scattered or random elements. The important point is the on­
tological distinction between event and incident (Ricœur (1965). An in­
cident is defined by its complete contingency, as something that occurs
in a certain manner but could equally occur in a different manner, or
not at all. A story transforms a series of heterogeneous incidents into
meaningful events within a diachronic structure. The composition of a
story is a process that organizes various components into a whole in or­
der to produce a single meaningful effect. The narrative seeing-things-
together transforms the irrational contingency of non-contextualized in­
cidents into an intelligible contingency of events. In the tradition of
Kant, this seeing-things-together can be described as a “synthesis of the
heterogeneous.”
Inquiry into the personal identity of the individual is a further philo­
sophical area of research in the field of narrativity. Narrative ap­
proaches to this issue (Ricœur 1985, 1990; Kerby 1991; Meuter 1995;
Brockmeier & Carbough eds. 2001; for further discussion, see Straw-
son 2004) assume that personal identity is formed and stabilized only
through the telling of stories (→ identity and narration). The identity of
the individual person differs fundamentally from the numerical identity
of individual objects. Personal identity rests upon a self-image that is
physical, emotional, mental as well as practical, and this self-image is
internally reflected and externally communicated in the narrative pro­
cess. Corresponding to these two forms of usage, it is possible to dis­
tinguish two types of identity (Ricœur 1985, 1990): on the one hand,
251 Narration in Various Disciplines

identity as “sameness” (German: Selbigkeit; Latin: idem; French: mê­

meté); on the other hand, identity as “selfhood” (German: Selbstheit;
Latin: ipse; French: ipséité). Narrative identities are invariably ipse-
identities which are constantly reconfigured through the telling of sto-
ries.

3.7 Ethics

The concept of narrative identities has a genuine moral or ethical di­

mension (Korthals-Altes 2005). In relation to neo-Aristotelian con­
cepts, authors such as Taylor (1989) and MacIntyre (1981) examine
narrative identities in connection with the search for the “good life.”
The writings of Nussbaum (1990) highlight this aspect in that they em­
phasize the significance of narrative fiction in the formation of values
and, generally speaking, moral awareness. The stories of the literary
canon provide a rich source of alternative forms of the “good life.” But
there is an even deeper structural interrelation between narrative iden­
tity formation and the moral dimension of human existence. The forma­
tion of narrative identities is identical with the development of a set of
values that are independent of any given situation and which lend a
whole life―or at least certain stages of a life―moral meaning and sta­
bility. This is a genuinely social process in the sense of interaction with
others to accomplish shared projects. Thus the narrative process also
serves to generate forms and expressions of mutual respect. In this con­
text, Ricœur (1990) speaks of the “complementary dialectics” of iden­
tity formation and respect for others. The other individual represents
the moral imperative to take responsibility for his potential suffering.
However, in order to be able to reflect critically on the relationship
with the other, the self must define its own position. Forms of “self
love,” or at least of “self esteem,” are thus essential for moral behavior
with regard to the other, and these constitute the reflexive moment in
the orientation towards a good life. This dialectic of identity formation
and respect takes place in and with the stories we live through and tell
each other (Meuter 2007).

3.8 Sociology

Studies on narrative in the field of sociology (Morrison 2005) also fo­

cus on the problem of personal identity. In the sociology of knowledge
(Luhmann 1989), this problem is regarded as a feature of the modern
functionally differentiated society which, unlike pre-modern societies,
no longer ascribes a fixed identity to its members on the basis of birth,
class, etc. Identity thus becomes an accomplishment for which the indi­
 Narration in Various Disciplines 252

vidual himself is responsible. Society no longer provides an answer to

the question “who am I?”, but leaves it to the individual to find his or
her own answer. To do so, the modern individual must have a very
clear idea of which of his behavioral traits are relevant to his participa­
tion in the various sectors of society (politics, academia, education, the
economy, the arts, etc.). Nowadays, the necessity of having multi-lay-
ered identities that enable participation in various social environments
is a given. Consequently, the modern individual can only resolve the
problem of his (all-embracing) identity by adopting a self-image as an
“individual individual,” i.e. an individual with a unique, distinc-tively
individual life story whose decisive meaning resides in its distinctive­
ness from other life stories (Meuter 2002). Accordingly, the modern
concept of the identity of the individual is articulated mainly through
narrative. Narrative forms, with their inherent structures of temporality
and meaning, indeed appear to lend themselves particularly well to
questions concerning one’s own (individual) identity: it is possible in a
story for one to change, develop, and integrate sudden changes (peri­
peteia) while somehow remaining “the same.”
The question is, though, whether and to what extent concepts of
identity based on an idea of the narrative unity of human life can be up­
held under the social conditions of late modern and postmodern times
(Kraus 1996; cf. Salmon 2007). Critics regard such categories as con­
tinuity, consistency, and coherence, which are inherent in narrative and
biographical identity, as a fundamentally totalitarian coercion into re­
garding one’s own life as an integral unity which must be realized.
They claim that the way of life of the individual in postmodern so­
cieties can no longer be adequately described in the classical narrative
sense as “I-identity,” but at best within the conceptual framework of a
“patchwork-identity” (Keupp 1996).

3.9 Theology

All religions rely on narrative myths of foundation which have sub­

sequently acquired canonical status. Theological studies with a narra-
tological orientation (Goldberg 1982; Sternberg 1987; Hauerwas &
Jones eds. 1989; Cornils 2005) have picked up on this connection and
can be understood as reflections on the narrative practices of religion.
It must be borne in mind that theology has always been rooted in nar­
rative practices with which it is inextricably linked (in the sense of
Schapp 1953). There is no isolated plane of pure theological abstrac­
tion, since theological discourse has always been a part of religious
practice. On this basis, the matter in hand is the development of a the-
253 Narration in Various Disciplines

ology through narration which defines the genuinely narrative dimen­

sion of religious belief (Wenzel 1997). However, the question remains
as to whether there are inherent limits to a narrative theology, since
theology centers on faith which, by its nature, cannot be narrated. Even
so, narrative has an immense significance for theology with respect to
ethics. Christian ethics in particular must be seen as rooted within a
specific religious community, the church. This community derives its
identity from the fact that all of its members see themselves as part of a
shared narrated story: the story of God’s relationship with the beings
he has created (Hauerwas 1983).

3.10 Pedagogy

Narrative pedagogy implicitly criticizes the abstract structural analysis

of institutions, systemic constraints and patterns of interaction, focus­
ing instead on the concrete situations in which teaching and learning
take place. Gaining insight into the real-life experience of learning
from stories is the point of departure for an inquiry into the narrative
sources of pedagogical knowledge (Baacke & Schulze eds. 1979).
Where this is applied to concrete didactic problems, school lessons and
the teaching of content-oriented knowledge can be analyzed with re­
gard to narrative forms (Krummheuer 1997). Narrating in this context
means describing a specific phenomenon in everyday classroom com­
munication. Narrative pedagogy is focused in particular on the argu­
mentative content of narrative-based learning and teaching processes: a
story-oriented argumentation will invariably appear more realistic and
convincing than the presentation of purely theoretical knowledge. In
order to understand experience, and particularly the experience of the
self and its identity, pedagogy requires narrative elements that supple­
ment academic knowledge with narrative knowledge. The inclusion of
narrative paths to the acquisition of knowledge is a prerequisite for the
processes of identification that are necessary for an effective learning
experience (Neubert 1998).

3.11 Law Studies

Law studies have a strong affinity with the concept of narrativity, espe­
cially in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of “case law” based on precedent
(Lüderssen 1996; van Roermund 1997; Bruner 2002). All laws can be
understood as abstractions of individual cases. Individual cases, in turn,
enter the legal system by way of narrations. The prosecutor, defendant,
defense counsel, counsel for the prosecution, witnesses, and experts
tell the court their version of events relevant to the case. Judge and jury
 Narration in Various Disciplines 254

then select―or adequately transform―the one version that in their

judgment corresponds to what really happened, a procedure that pre­
supposes a high degree of narrative competence. In particular, this in­
volves the ability to actively employ and analyze as well as to criticize
the rhetorical devices and narrative strategies resorted to by the witness
in order to lend plausibility to his version of events (Brooks & Gerwitz
eds. 1996). Another characteristic central to narrative competence in
legal contexts is the ability to compare and evaluate stories in view of
their legal relevance. Here, the legal sciences can resort to literary ren­
derings of legal problems (Geary 2005; Brooks 2005; Sternberg 2008),
a connection that represents one aspect of the “law and literature move­
ment.”

3.12 Medicine

In the field of medicine, questions relating to narrative have been expli­

citly thematized for some time now (Greenhalgh & Hurwitz eds. 2005).
This results from an understanding of medicine that regards the disci-
pline not primarily as a natural science, but as a behavioral science:
scientific knowledge of the human being is necessary, but in the end it
only serves to enable the medical practitioner to heal the patient or
provide palliation for his ailment. Stories are generally a central factor
in the doctor-patient relationship, particularly where anamnesis is con­
cerned. Before a doctor can begin treating the patient, he must learn as
much as possible about his supposed condition on the basis of what the
patient tells him. In this situation, linguistic, empathetic and interpreta-
tive faculties are required. The doctor needs to “translate” the stories
told by the patient into narratives with a medical focus without moving
too far beyond the sphere of the patient’s real-life experience, but at the
same time providing a structural basis for the next steps in the profes­
sional-medical treatment (Hydén 2005). The doctor’s medical training,
however, will in no way have prepared him to meet these requirements.
As a medical student, he will have been confronted with a number of
significant case studies, but at present there is a lack of systematic so­
ciocultural training of narrative competence. This is relevant because
such stories provide the meaning, context and perspective for the spe­
cific problematics of an individual patient’s case. Stories explain how
and why someone has fallen ill. By evoking as many subjective aspects
of the illness as possible, they make possible a holistic approach to di-
agnosis and therapy. Periods of sickness are important peripeties in life
and often figure prominently in life stories.
255 Narration in Various Disciplines

3.13 Philosophy of Science

Starting with Danto (1965), the concept of “narrative explanation”

(Roth 1989) in the philosophy of science has emerged as a critical posi­
tion that challenges the influence of positivism and logical empiricism
on the philosophy of science in the humanities. According to the posi-
tivist-nomological position, the humanities, too, are governed by a pro­
cess of logical deduction whereby individual events must be explained,
i.e. the event to be explained (the explanandum) is deduced from cer­
tain a priori conditions and empirical laws which, together, constitute
the explanans. A critique of this model hinges mainly on the concept of
“cultural laws,” although these laws are not to be understood as analog­
ous to the laws of nature. In the humanities we do not expect explana­
tions to be founded on laws, but on motives, reasons and aims, in other
words, on the intentions of persons who take part in given scenarios.
Furthermore, there are many other factors that lead to cultural events
taking place such as the behavior of other people, circumstances and
coincidences, etc. Still, the question remains as to whether one is justi­
fied at all, and if so, to what extent, in speaking of intentions in rela-
tion to actions that are manifest before and independent of the process
of their realization. It is therefore clearly insufficient to explain ac-
tion―and even more so, complex cultural processes―solely, or even
predominantly, on the basis of the intentions of acting subjects
(Schwemmer 1987; Meuter 2000). Instead, it is necessary to recon­
struct the individual story of which the action in question forms a part.
Furthermore, the purely nomological philosophy of science ignores
the fact that the explanandum does not constitute just an event, but a
transformation. It is therefore wrong to regard the former state, in the
sense of initial conditions, as part of the explanans. On the contrary,
the beginning and the end of a process of transformation both form part
of the explanandum. On this basis, it is possible to construct the basic
formula for a narrative explanation (Danto 1965): a narrative explana­
tion is arrived at by filling in the middle between the temporal starting
and ending points of a transformation. A story is the explanation of
how a transformation took place from beginning to end: (a) x is F in
t-1; (b) H happens in conjunction with x in t-2; (c) x is G in t-3.
(a) and (c) form the explanandum, and (b) the explanans of the nar­
rative explanation. Together, the three steps delineate the relevant
transformation in keeping with the triadic structure: the explanation has
a beginning (a), a middle (b), and an end (c). One must bear in mind,
though, that this basic schema is an oversimplification. Many trans­
formations, especially those which the historical sciences seek to ex­
 Narration in Various Disciplines 256

plain, are far more complex and incorporate numerous factors that have
to be integrated into the narrative explanation. The complexity of factu­
al processes cannot serve as an argument against narrative explanations
per se. On the contrary, a narrative, by definition, is a symbolic form of
representation that is flexible and malleable enough to make possible
the integration of (relevant) complex factors into the explanation. In
any case, the specific rationality and scientific nature of explanations in
cultural studies are directly linked with the narrative formula. In cultur­
al studies, narratives are not regarded as a deficiency―something that
one has to fall back on in the absence of alternatives due to a lack of in­
sight into “cultural laws,” for example―but rather a genuine means for
formulating insights and research findings.

4 Topics for Further Research

4.1 Natural Sciences

Despite the fact that on occasion narrative elements are used in expla-
nations in the natural sciences (e.g. the narrative of “Schroedinger’s
cat”; cf. Plotnitsky 2005b) and that certain narrative backgrounds exist
(e.g. in the term “natural history” in the theory of evolution and in pa­
leontology), a specifically narratological inquiry in the natural sciences
remains a desideratum. In the philosophy of science, this involves the
concept of meaning and the related classic dichotomy of “explaining”
and “understanding”: the world of nature is devoid of meaning and
must be explained through laws and the establishment of causal con­
nections; by contrast, the world of culture and human understanding is
rendered meaningful and can be understood through stories (among
other means). An application of the concepts of narrative would there­
fore presuppose a revision of fundamental precepts in the natural sci­
ences: it would be necessary to understand nature as something that is
not (or at least not entirely) governed by laws and causal connections,
but primarily constitutes a dynamic and creative process. This calls for
philosophical paradigm shifts, the beginnings of which can be found in
Whitehead’s (1929) cosmology. In the tradition of Aristotelian physics,
being is conceived as a complex interplay of processes of becoming,
each having their own structure. Every occurrence in nature begins
with an event which becomes part of a creative process oriented to­
wards the final outcome. From this point of view, it seems possible to
describe processes in nature with narrative categories (Meuter & Lach­
mann forthcoming).
257 Narration in Various Disciplines

4.2 Systems Theory

A systems theoretical approach, which encompasses the difference

between nature and culture, might prove productive with regard to po­
tential studies on the role of narrative in the natural sciences. Independ­
ent of this, however, systems theory has the benefit―in contrast to the
classic theories of behavior, for example―of reaching a level of ab­
straction that makes possible a discussion of all areas of culture in a
single unified theory. As a first step, a narrative can be understood as
the “systemic self-organization of meaning and time” (Meuter 2004).
Traditional approaches posit that meaning comes into the world
through subjects who act intentionally; systems theory, by contrast, ar­
gues that the identity of subjects and actions is formed first of all
through processes that produce meaning by means of selective reduc­
tions.
From a phenomenological perspective, these processes of meaning
appear in the form of stories. A narration is not the realization of a
plan, but rather a dynamic series of events that follows its own logic,
and because of its peripeties cannot be mastered from without. Subjects
are therefore not the sovereign masters of their own stories, but―simil­
ar to their actions―must be regarded as their effects. The systems the­
oretical term “self-organization” lends itself to describing precisely this
situation.
The decisive factor for a narrative-oriented systems theory is the
high improbability of factual events. The reason why a certain event
takes place instead of another, equally probable one can only be ex­
plained if one regards events as elements in a meaningful systemic pro­
cess. From a systems theoretical perspective, any experiential meaning
is based on the difference between actuality and potentiality: only one
possibility can ever be realized out of an abundant potentiality. Under
this condition, meaning is by nature experienced as a reduction of com­
plexity, as an inescapable necessity for selection. Here, one has to take
into consideration that it is a specific characteristic of a system operat­
ing with meaning that it not only reacts to the selections that have de
facto just taken place, but also to the selectivity of these selections.
Meaning is therefore inextricably linked with the experience of contin­
gency: systems of meaning select differently due to the experience of
being able to select. A systemic process, therefore, is not just a formal
“row” or “chain” where identical parts are simply lined up according to
a never-changing principle. Rather, every part of the process “leaves its
legacy” of selectivity to the one following it, and in the course of this
process, ever greater improbabilities accumulate through recursive
 Narration in Various Disciplines 258

loops. Phenomenologically speaking, this, too, manifests itself in nar­

rative form: whenever one is entangled in a story, one quickly―after
only very few peripeties―finds that one has arrived at a point that ini­
tially one would never have thought possible. Thus, narrations explain
reality to us, or at the very least, they can help us understand why
something is the way it is, even if it is improbable and not created by
subjects: what is, is the result of a self-organizing systemic process.

(Translated by Nina Stedman)

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 Narration in Various Media
Marie-Laure Ryan

1 Definition

The term of medium (plural: media) covers a wide variety of phenom-

ena: (a) TV, radio, and the internet (especially the WWW) as the media
of mass communication; (b) music, painting, film, the theater and liter­
ature as the media of art; (c) language, the image and sound as the me­
dia of expression (and by implication as the media of artistic expres­
sion); (d) writing and orality as the media of language; (e) handwriting,
printing, the book, and the computer as the media of writing. The
definition provided by Webster’s dictionary puts relative order in this
diversity by proposing two distinct definitions: (1) Medium as a chan­
nel or system of communication, information, or entertainment; (2)
Medium as a material or technical means of expression (including
artistic expression) .

2 Explication

The first definition regards media as conduits for the transmission of

information, while the second describes them as “languages” that shape
this information (Meyrowitz 1993). (The use of quotation marks in this
entry will distinguish “language” as a collection of expressive devices
from language as the semiotic code that forms the object of linguistics.)
The relevance of the concept of medium for narratology is much more
evident for type 2 than for type 1. Ong (1982) has objected to a concep­
tion of media that reduces them to “pipelines for the transfer of a ma­
terial called information.” If indeed conduit-type media were nothing
more than hollow pipes for the transmission of artifacts realized in a
medium of type 2 (e.g. a film broadcast on TV, a painting digitized on
the WWW, a musical performance recorded and played on a phono­
graph), they would bear little narratological interest. But the shape of
the pipe affects the kind of information that can be transmitted, alters
the conditions of reception, and often leads to the creation of works
tailor-made for the medium (cf. films made for TV). For the narratolo­
264 Narration in Various Media

gist, channel-type media are only interesting to the extent that they in­
volve “differences that make a narrative difference”—in other words,
to the extent that they function as both conduits and “languages.”
Among technologies, TV, radio, film, and the internet have clearly de­
veloped unique storytelling capabilities, but it would be hard to find
reasons to regard Xerox copy machines or phonographs as possessing
their own narrative “language.”

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 Historical Background

In Western thought, reflection on how narrative is conditioned by the

medium in which it is realized—what we may call its mediality—can
be traced as far back as Plato’s distinction between a diegetic and a mi­
metic mode of narration. According to Plato, in diegetic narration the
poet speaks in his own voice (or rather, in the case of fiction, in the
voice of a narrator), while in mimetic narration, he speaks through the
characters. Both modes occur in epic poetry, but while diegetic narra­
tion, interpreted as reporting, remains dependent on language, in the
long run of the centuries until now mimetic narration, interpreted as
showing, has become the dominant mode of presentation in multi-chan­
nel performing arts, such as drama, film, the opera, mime, and ballet. In
these last two cases, as well as in silent film, mimetic narration be­
comes emancipated from language.
It was left to Aristotle to acknowledge medium as a distinctive prop­
erty of art. After defining poetry as imitation (in the sense of represen-
tation), Aristotle mentions three ways of distinguishing various types
of imitation: through medium, object and mode. Under medium, he
classifies expressive resources such as color, shape, rhythm, melody,
and voice. The notion of object (or content) creates a generic distinc­
tion between imitations that share the same medium: for instance,
tragedy deals with people of higher standing, while comedy represents
people of lower social stature. “Mode,” finally, covers Plato’s distinc­
tion between diegetic and mimetic presentation, but it is recast as an
opposition between narration and impersonation: “It is possible to imi-
tate the same objects in the same medium sometimes by narrating
(either using a different persona, as in Homer’s poetry, or as the same
person without variations), or else with all the imitators as agents and
engaged in activity” (1996: 2.2). Here Aristotle regards narration and
impersonation as instances of the same medium because both are made
of language; but if we make a pragmatic distinction between enacting
 Narration in Various Media 265

and reporting and regard this distinction as constitutive of medium,

then their difference in “mode” marks epic poetry and drama as distinct
narrative media in the modern sense of the word despite their common
semiotic support.
Another landmark in the study of narrative mediality is Lessing’s
distinction between spatial and temporal forms of art. Reacting to the
18th-century philosophy of art, which was captured by the saying of Si­
monides of Ceos, “painting is mute poetry, and poetry is speaking
painting,” Lessing insisted on the sensory and spatio-temporal dimen­
sions of the two media: painting speaks to the sense of sight, poetry to
the imagination; painting extends in space, poetry extends in time.
These differences predispose the two art forms to the representation of
different subject matters: “signs existing in space can only represent
objects whose wholes or parts coexist, while signs that follow one an­
other can express only objects whose wholes or parts are consecutive”
([1766] 1984: 78). While the strength of painting lies in the representa­
tion of beauty, which resides in a relation between the parts of an ob­
ject, poetry excels at the representation of action because action devel­
ops in time. Painting is in essence a descriptive medium, and poetry a
narrative one. But Lessing does not exclude the possibility of stretch­
ing each medium in the direction of the other. Poetry can dramatize the
evocation of static objects by transforming spatial vision into temporal
action, as Homer does when he describes Juno’s chariot by recounting
how Hebe put it together piece by piece. The spatial arts, conversely,
can overcome their narrative deficiency by selecting a so-called “preg­
nant moment” that offers a window on the preceding and following ac­
tions. Lessing’s example is the famous Greek sculpture of Laocoön,
which shows the Trojan priest and his sons in the last moments of a
hopeless struggle against a sea serpent.
While we can extract observations relevant to what we now call me­
dium in earlier periods, it wasn’t until the 20th century, when techno­
logical inventions such as photography, film, the phonograph, radio,
and television expanded the repertory of channels of communication
and means of representation that the concept of medium emerged as an
autonomous topic of inquiry. McLuhan, an inspiring but somewhat
mercurial thinker, popularized the concept with his characterization of
media as “extension of man,” his claim that media are “forms that
shape and reshape our perceptions,” and his oft-quoted but variably in­
terpreted slogan “the medium is the message” (1996), which puts self-
reference at the center of media studies. He was also instrumental in
breaking down the barrier between elite and popular culture, a move
which lead to the emancipation of media studies from literature, philos-
266 Narration in Various Media

ophy, and poetics. For McLuhan, comic strips, advertisements or the

composition of the newspaper front page were as worthy of attention as
works of high literature. But it was his disciple, Ong (1982), who broke
the ground for the study of narrative in media other than written litera-
ture with a systematic explorations of the forms of narrative in oral and
chirographic cultures (=cultures based on handwriting).
In France, the structuralist/semiotic movement gave legitimacy to
the study of non-verbal forms of representation (advertisement and
photography for Barthes [1980], cinema for Deleuze [1983, 1985] and
Metz [1968], TV and mass communication for Baudrillard [1981]).
However, structuralism sometimes hampered the understanding of me­
dia due to its insistence on regarding Saussure’s linguistic theory as the
model of all semiotic systems. Visual representations, in particular,
cannot be divided into discrete units comparable to the morphemes and
phonemes of language, and the doctrine of the arbitrariness of the lin­
guistic sign cannot account for the iconic signification of painting and
film. In the long run, Peircian semiotics, with its tripartite division of
signs into symbols, icons and indices, has proved more fruitful for me­
dia studies.
The founding fathers of narratology recognized from the very begin­
ning the medium-transcending nature of narrative: according to Bre-
mond (1973), stories can be realized in media as diverse as literature,
stage, ballet, and film. Mixing genres (→ narration in poetry and
drama) and media, Barthes (1966) expands the list to include myth, le­
gend, fable, tale, novella, epic history, drama, mime, painting, stained
glass window, cinema, comics, news items, conversation, etc. Were he
alive today, he would add blogs, hypertext, and video games. Barthes’
and Bremond’s wish to open up narratology to media other than litera-
ture went unfulfilled for years. Under the influence of Genette, narra-
tology developed as a project almost exclusively devoted to literary fic­
tion. Media representing the mimetic mode, such as drama and film,
were largely ignored, and because of their absence of narrator, some­
times not even recognized as narratives, despite the similarity of their
content with the plots of diegetic narration. But this situation changed
dramatically in the late 20th century with the so-called “narrative turn”
in the humanities. In the past twenty years, the study of non-literary or
non-verbal forms of narrative has extended to conversational narrative
(Labov 1972), film (Bordwell 1985; Chatman 1978), comic strips
(McCloud 1994), painting (Bal 1991; Steiner 1988), photography
(Hirsch 1997), opera (Hutcheon & Hutcheon 1999), television (Kozloff
1992; Thompson 2003), dance (Foster 1996), and music (Abbate 1989;
Grabósz 1999, 2007: 231–98; Tarasti 2004; Seaton 2005).
 Narration in Various Media 267

Media studies took a theoretical turn in the 1990s. In the U.S.,

Bolter & Grusin (1999) proposed the concept of “remediation” to ex­
plain the relations between different media. In their view, every new
technology-based medium must be understood, in the context of other
media, as an attempt to “remediate” their limitations and get closer to
the elusive goal of “achieving the real.” Video games, for instance, re­
mediate film by incorporating narrative techniques commonly used in
cinema within an interactive environment; digital photography remedi­
ates analogue photography by making images easier to manipulate;
analogue photography remediates painting by being more faithful to its
object; and the Internet remediates all other media by encoding them
digitally in order to facilitate their transmission. In its narratological
applications, “remediation” directs attention to how narrative texts may
create networks of connections between different media. But the claim
that every new medium constitutes an improvement over an old one
cannot be sustained from a narratological and aesthetic point of view,
for every gain in expresseness comes at a cost, and new media do not
necessarily produce better narratives than old ones.
The concept of “intermediality,” now widely adopted in Europe, is
more narrowly focused on art forms than remediation, and it avoids the
meliorism inherent in this term. As Wolf (2008) observes, intermediali-
ty can be conceived in a narrow and in a broad sense. In a broad sense,
it is the medial equivalent of intertextuality and covers any transgres­
sion of boundaries between different media. In a narrow sense, it refers
to the participation of more than one medium—or sensory channel—in
a given work. The opera, for instance, is intermedial through its use of
gestures, language, music, and visual stage setting. If intermediality is
interpreted in a wide sense, other terms must be forged to differentiate
its diverse forms, including a new term for the narrow sense. Wolf
(2005) suggests “plurimediality” for artistic objects that include many
semiotic systems; “transmediality” for phenomena, such as narrative it­
self, whose manifestation is not bound to a particular medium; “inter­
medial transposition” for adaptations from one medium to another; and
“intermedial reference” for texts that thematize other media (e.g. a nov­
el devoted to the career of a painter or composer), quote them (inser­
tion of text in a painting), describe them (representation of a painting
through ekphrasis in a novel), or formally imitate them (a novel struc­
tured as a fugue).
268 Narration in Various Media

3.2 The Nature of Media

The variety of the phenomena subsumed under the concept of medium

stems not only from the two distinct functions mentioned by Webster’s
definition—transmitting information or forming the support of infor-
mation—but also from the nature of the criteria that differentiate indi­
vidual media. These criteria belong to three conceptual domains: semi­
otic, material-technological, and cultural, each of which can be linked
to different approaches to narrative.
As a semiotic category, a medium is characterized by the codes and
sensory channels upon which it relies. The semiotic approach tends to
distinguish three broad media families: verbal, visual, and aural. The
groupings yielded by this taxonomy broadly correspond to art types,
namely literature, painting, and music. This rudimentary typology must
be expanded in order to account for an art like dance, which is based
on the movements of the body, or for an activity like video games,
whose distinctive feature is the pragmatic notion of active user parti­
cipation. Insofar as signs extend in time or space, the semiotic analysis
of media should also take into consideration their spatio-temporal di­
mensions. Media can be temporal and dynamic (music, oral language
transmitted through radio or telephone), temporal and static (i.e. rely­
ing on sequentially ordered signs but freezing them through inscription,
as in written literature); they can be purely spatial (painting, photo­
graphy, sculpture, architecture) or spatio-temporal; the spatio-temporal
in turn can be a static combination of temporal language and spatial im­
age or inscription (comics, written literature that exploits the two-di­
mensionality of the page), or include a kinetic dimension that controls
the duration of the receptive act (film, drama, mime, dance, and oral
narrative accompanied by gestures). A semiotic approach to media fo­
cused on narrative will ask about the storytelling abilities and limita­
tions of the signs of the medium under consideration. For instance:
How can images suggest time? How can gestures express causality?
What is the meaning of the graphic lay-out? How do the various types
of signs contribute to narrative meaning in plurimedial art forms?
To bring further refinement to semiotic media families, we must ask
about the material support of their individual members. Material sup­
port can be either a raw substance, such as clay for pottery, stone for
sculpture, the human body for dance, and the human vocal apparatus
for singing and oral storytelling, or a technological invention such as
writing (subdivided into manuscript, print, and electronic form), indi­
vidual musical instruments, photography, film, television, the tele­
phone, and digital technology. (As a meta-medium that encodes all
 Narration in Various Media 269

other media, digital technology would be a pure conduit, but by adding

interactivity to these media, it reaches the status of “language.”) For
the narratologist, the importance of technology lies in its ability to im­
prove or modify the expressive power of purely semiotic media. A case
in point is the well-documented and deep-reaching impact of the inven­
tion of writing, and later of print technology, on the form, use and con­
tent of narrative. According to Ong (1982), the influence of writing is
felt in the rising and falling contour of the dramatic plot (for Western
drama, even though performed orally, relies on a written text), in the
development of psychologically complex characters, in the epistemolo­
gical focus of the detective story, and in the self-referentiality of the
postmodern novel.
Not all phenomena regarded as media can be distinguished on the
basis of technological and semiotic properties alone. Newspapers, for
instance, rely on the same semiotic dimensions and printing technology
as books, but “the press” is widely regarded by sociologists as a medi­
um in its own right because it fulfills a unique cultural role in the “me­
dia ecology.” It is also to cultural practice that we can attribute the
grouping of semiotic dimensions into multi-channel media such as
drama, the opera, and comic books, or, with the help of a technological
support, into film, television, and computer games. The properties of
narratives produced in a certain medium are often due to a combination
of cultural, technological, and semiotic factors. The prevalence of
shooting in American computer games could for instance be explained
culturally by the importance of guns in American society (Japanese
games are much less violent), as well as by the fact that the computer-
game industry targets an audience of young males. But it is also moti-
vated semiotically by the presence of a sound track (shooting is prima-
rily manifested through noise) as well as technologically facilitated by
the fact that the action of shooting is easily simulated by the manipula­
tion of controls (hitting a key is reasonably similar to releasing a trig­
ger). By far the majority of media studies have been devoted to the cul­
tural use of medium-specific narratives. Possible topics for this ap­
proach include the rhetoric of TV news or the social impact of such
phenomena as computer games, Internet pornography, and film viol­
ence.

3.3 The Primacy of Language as Narrative Medium

Though we lack documents about the earliest manifestations of narra-

tive among higher primates, it is reasonable to assume that language
capacities, storytelling abilities, and human cultures co-evolved in sym-
270 Narration in Various Media

biotic relation with each other. Dautenhahn (2003) attributes the need
to tell stories to the complex social organizations of humans, compared
to that of apes, while Turner (1996) argues that humans did not start
telling stories as the result of developing language, but rather that lan­
guage was developed in response to the need to tell stories. In these ac­
counts of the social and cognitive foundations of storytelling, natural
language is presented as the original narrative medium. The innate af­
finity of narrative and language can be explained by the fact that nar­
rative is not something that is perceived by the senses: it is constructed
by the mind, either out of data provided by life or out of invented ma­
terials. Similarly, as a mode of representation, language speaks to the
mind rather than to the senses, though it is of course through the senses
that its signs are perceived. Thanks to its semantic nature and its power
of articulation, language is the only semiotic system (besides formal
notation systems) in which it is possible to formulate propositions.
Stories are about characters placed in a changing world, and narration
is crucially dependent on the ability of a medium to single out existents
and attribute properties to them. Neither images nor pure sound pos­
sesses this intrinsic ability: sound has no meaning, and pictures can
show, but they cannot refer (Worth 1981). This makes it difficult for
them to foreground specific properties of objects out of the background
of their global visual appearance.
If we look at the constitutive features of narrative, we see other
reasons why natural language is its medium of choice. Narrative is wi-
dely regarded by scholars as a discourse that conveys a story; story, in
turn, has been defined as a mental image formed by four types of con­
stituents (Ryan 2007): (1) a spatial constituent consisting of a world
(the setting) populated by individuated existents (characters and ob­
jects); (2) a temporal constituent, by which this world undergoes signi­
ficant changes caused by non-habitual events (→ event and eventful­
ness); (3) a mental constituent, specifying that the events must involve
intelligent agents who have a mental life and react emotionally to the
states of the world (or to the mental states of other agents); (4) a formal
and pragmatic constituent, advocating closure and a meaningful mes­
sage.
The first and fourth of these conditions are not particularly depend-
ent on language. Closure and meaningfulness can be achieved in any
semiotic system, and images are more efficient than words at represent­
ing a world populated by existents because of the spatial extension and
visual appearance of concrete objects. But the second and third features
of narrative are highly language-dependent. As Lessing observed, the
temporality of language is naturally suited to represent events that suc­
 Narration in Various Media 271

ceed each other in time. With its combination of dynamic unfolding

and visuality, film may be as efficient as words at representing a suc­
cession of events such as “the king died and then the queen died,” but
only words can say “the king died and then the queen died of grief” be­
cause only language is able to make relations of causality explicit. In a
film (and even more so in a static image), causal relations between
events must be left to the spectator’s interpretation, and without a
voice-over narration (→ narration in film), we can never be completely
sure that it was grief and not illness that killed the queen. Language-
based narratives may admittedly choose to be highly elliptic in their
presentation of causal relations: nothing would be more tedious than a
story that left nothing to infer, but if all causal relations had to be
guessed, this would place serious limitations on the repertory of stories
that can be told by a medium. However, it is with condition 3 that lan­
guage displays its true narrative superiority over other semiotic media.
In language, we can express emotions and intents unambiguously by
saying “x was scared,” “x was upset,” “x was in love,” or “x decided to
take revenge.” Language can dwell at length on the mental life of char­
acters, on their considerations of multiple possible courses of actions,
on their philosophy of life, on their hopes and fears, on their daydreams
and fantasies, because mental life can be represented as a kind of inner
discourse, structured in the same way as language. Cognitive science
may tell us that not all thinking is verbal, but the translation of private
thought into language is one of the most powerful and widespread nar­
rative devices. Most importantly, only language can represent the most
common type of social interaction between intelligent agents, namely
verbal exchanges, for the very simple reason that only language can
represent language. The narrative power and diversity of film, drama
and the opera is mainly due to the presence of a language track. This
track, traditionally, has been limited by the conventions of realism to
what an observer looking through an imaginary fourth wall can hear,
namely dialogue. But phenomena such as the chorus of Greek tragedy,
the written signs of epic theater, the asides to the audience of modern
drama, and the voice-over narration of film represent an attempt to use
language not only to imitate the speech of characters, but also to com­
ment on the action, as it does so often in diegetic narrative. The
storytelling potential of a medium is directly proportional to the im­
portance and versatility of its language component.
272 Narration in Various Media

3.4 Narrating without Language

The independence of narrative from language is a matter of degree. In

its strictest interpretation, “narrating without language” means that a
story unknown to the appreciator is evoked by the purely sensory, non-
semantic resources of image or sound. (Taste, touch, and smell are far
less developed senses, and they do not seem to have any narrative po­
tential.) In a slightly weaker form of non-verbal → narrativity, the
work tells a story new to the user, but it uses a language-based title to
suggest a narrative interpretation. In the loosest interpretation, a narra-
tive without language is a work that illustrates a story already known to
the user (Varga 1988), and its narrativity is parasitic on the narrativity
of the original text, which, most likely, will be known through lan­
guage. This illustrative function is by far the most common occurrence
in non-verbal narration.

3.4.1 Pictorial Narrative

To achieve narrativity, pictures must capture the temporal unfolding of
a story through a static frame. Wolf (2005) distinguishes three kinds of
pictorial narratives: monophase works that evoke one moment in a
story through a single image; polyphase works that capture several dis­
tinct moments within the same image; and series of pictures that cap­
ture a sequence of events.
The monophase work presents the greatest narrative challenge be­
cause it must compress the entire narrative arc into a single scene. For
an image to suggest a narrative interpretation, it must not only repre-
sent a frozen moment in a dynamic action, but must also arouse curios­
ity about the motivation of the agent. From very early on, the visual
arts have shown man in action, but the hunting scenes or everyday
activities depicted in cave paintings or on Egyptian scrolls do not fully
qualify as narratives because they represent repetitive events with an
unproblematic life-maintenance function. Similarly, the scenes of 17th-
century Dutch genre painting are low in narrativity, or more specifi-
cally in eventfulness, because they rely almost entirely on familiar
scripts and schemata for their interpretation. A truly narrative image
must depict one-of-a-kind events that cause a significant change of
state for the participants: not baking bread but stealing a loaf; not hunt­
ing animals for food, but killing a dragon to save a princess; not mak­
ing music as a group, but secretly fondling a fellow musician (cf.
Hühn’s distinction between event I and event II in the present encyclo­
pedia). To read a picture narratively is to ask: Who are the characters
shown in the picture? What are their interpersonal relations? What
 Narration in Various Media 273

have they done before? What are they doing? What are their reasons
for acting? What change of state will the action bring? How will the
characters react to the event? Pictures cannot answer these questions
directly because they are limited to the representation of visual proper­
ties. Not only do images lack a temporal dimension, they are also un­
able to represent language and thought, causal relations, counterfactu­
ality, and multiple possibilities. Other limitations include the inability
to make comments, provide explanations, and create suspense and sur­
prise, two effects which depend on a time-bound disclosure of informa­
tion. Even so, the narrative incompleteness of images is a powerful
generator of curiosity. As Wolf (2005) has shown, reading a picture
narratively necessitates a far more elaborate gap-filling activity than
reading a language-based story. Monophase pictorial narratives are
either illustrative or indeterminate in their content. An indeterminate
picture opens a small window on time through the technique of the
pregnant moment, but many different narrative arcs can pass through
this window, corresponding to the multiple ways of imagining the long-
term past and future that expand the content of the window into a com­
plete story. Perhaps the only type of monophase pictures that tells a de­
terminate story is the humorous single-frame, caption-less cartoon, for
humor lies in a narrowly defined feature that people either get or miss.
Yet still pictures also have their narrative strengths, when compared
to language: they can give a far better idea of the spatial configuration
of the storyworld; they can suggest emotions through facial expressions
and body language; and they can show beauty directly, rather than
naming the property and leaving its specific representation to the
reader’s imagination. Though they lack operators of mental activity,
they can develop visual conventions, such as the thought balloon, to
“derealize” events and represent objects as mental images formed by
characters. They often make up for their inability to name characters by
using traditional attributes (keys for Saint Peter, horns for the devil),
and they can suggest abstract ideas through conventional visual sym­
bols: lilies for purity, pomegranates for lust, a skull for death. When
purely visual means fail, they can internalize language by showing in­
tra-diegetic objects bearing inscriptions, such as signs or letters (cf. the
very readable letter from Charlotte Corday held by the dead Marat in
Jacques-Louis David’s “Marat Assassinated”). Because pictures stand
still, the spectator has ample time to inspect them for narratively signi­
ficant details.
In polyphase pictures, the narrative arc is much more determinate
because it is plotted through several distinct scenes within the same
global frame. These scenes are often separated by architectural fea­
274 Narration in Various Media

tures: for instance, in Benozzo Gozzoli’s “The Dance of Salome and

the Beheading of St John the Baptist” (cf. Steiner 1988), an arched wall
separates the beheading scene from the dancing scene, and Salome
presents the head of the saint to her mother Herodiad in an alcove of
the room were the dancing scene takes place. The space of the pictures
may or may not be used as an indicator of temporal sequence: in “The
Dance of Salome,” the eye does not read the story told by the painting
linearly (i.e. left to right or right to left), but follows a circular path,
from the right to the left to the center. This path must be discovered by
detecting relations of causality which parallel the direction of time. But
the narrative gaps between the individual scenes are so great in this
particular painting that a spectator unfamiliar with the biblical story
would be unable to decode its narrative logic. Themes such as reward
and revenge, crucial to the Salome story, involve mental constructs far
too complex for visual representation.
It takes a series of pictures to tell a story that is both reasonably de­
terminate and new to the reader. Serial pictures can narrate in two
ways. The first, illustrated by William Hogarth’s painting series A
Rake’s Progress and Marriage à la Mode (Wolf 2005), consists of de­
voting each picture to one episode in the life of a character by resorting
to the techniques of the monophase pictures. The individual paintings
depict self-contained mini-narratives separated from each other by sig­
nificant time gaps, but the various scenes are connected by weak causal
relations: each painting represents a step in the downfall of the hero, a
young man who rises from poverty through inheritance, engages in a
life of debauch and dishonesty, gambles his fortune away, is im­
prisoned and ends up in a mental asylum. Narrative content is suggest-
ed on the level of the individual images by their reliance on familiar
scripts, such as the gambling-house or the prison script, and on the
global level by the recurrence of the same character (identified by con­
stant visual features), as well as by the chronological sequence indi-
cated by the spatial arrangement of the pictures. The other technique,
common in wordless comic strips, associates every image with one mo­
ment in a continuous action as if it were a frozen frame in a silent film.
While in the first technique narrativity exists on both the macro- and
the micro-level, here it is limited to the macro-level. The individual im­
ages are separated by smaller time spans than in the first type, but they
are linked together by stronger causal relations. An example of this
technique is a sketchbook titled “Pipe Dreams” by the French artist
Jean-Jacques Sempé, published in The New Yorker on November 20,
2000. “Pipe Dreams” tells the story of a lion who fantasizes loving a
unicorn. But since unicorns do not exist, he marries a mare and tries
 Narration in Various Media 275

unsuccessfully to turn her into a unicorn by putting an ice cream cone

on her forehead. The upset bride runs away from him, and he ends up
on a psychiatrist’s couch. Through the use of speech and thought bal­
loons, the narrative is able to perform a rare feat in wordless
storytelling: a disruption of the chronological order. After an opening
frame that shows the lion dreaming of a unicorn, the next five frames
(out of fourteen) represent the lion on the couch, and his personal ex­
perience is shown as images within a speech balloon, suggesting that it
is being told to the psychiatrist. When the lion’s story escapes from the
balloon and fills the entire frame, the storytelling act disappears from
sight, and the reader is transported back to the time of the narrated
events. The embedded sequence of the past catches up in the last frame
with the embedding sequence of the present when the lion is shown
knocking on the psychiatrist’s door. Thanks to the visual conventions
of the modern comic strip, “Pipe Dreams” remediates many of the lim­
itations of the purely mimetic image without using a single word: even
the title is not indicative of narrative content.

3.4.2 Narrating through Gestures

As ballet, pantomime, and the movies of the silent area demonstrate, it
is possible to tell a story through the kinetic means of gestures and fa­
cial expression. But ballet either fulfills an illustrative function (cf. for
this aspect also 3.4.3 on music) with respect to the story referred to by
its title (“Cinderella,” “The Nutcracker”) or relies on a summary in the
program, while silent movies use music and subtitles to suggest a nar­
rative interpretation. Can body movement tell a story that is new to the
spectator without external help? The answer is yes, but the repertory is
very limited. A pantomime could for instance tell the story of a scorned
lover who becomes depressed and attempts suicide, but suddenly re­
gains his lust for life when an attractive woman walks by. Narrative is
about evolving networks of human relations; and gestures and move­
ment, by varying the distance between bodies, are reasonably good at
representing the evolution of interpersonal relations, as long as mental
life can be translated into visible body language. But even though ges­
tures add a kinetic element to serial still pictures, this does not result in
a significant increase in narrative power. On the contrary: it is much
more difficult to narrate through continuous gestures than it is through
discrete pictures frames. The chronological rearrangements of the Sem­
pé cartoon would be impossible in a pantomime because gestural narra­
tion unfolds entirely in the present. It also operates in a simulacrum of
real time that largely limits the narrated time to the time of narration.
This real time dimension predisposes gestural narration to the repre-
276 Narration in Various Media

sentation of short sketches. Serial pictures, by contrast, break the con­

tinuity of action into distinct frames, and the frames are separated by
variable time spans: from a fraction of a second when cartoons repro­
duce continuous action to a lengthy period of time when frames intro­
duce new episodes. Gestural narration could admittedly signal breaks
between episodes by making the actors disappear from the stage and re­
appear. But in contrast to still pictures, language, and film, the live per­
formance of gestural narration is incapable of skipping a moderate peri­
od of time. It is only when gestures are recorded through film and the
footage put together through montage that it becomes possible to create
ellipses of any length in the development of a narrative action (e.g.
Bordwell &Thompson 2008: 229–31).

3.4.3 Musical Narratives

Music has a long history of being paired with language for narrative ef­
fects (sung poetry, “texted” music, opera, sound track of film and com­
puter games), but it may seem paradoxical to even mention the possi-
bility of telling stories through pure sounds. As a semiotic substance,
sound possesses neither the conventional meaning nor the iconic value
that allow words and images to create a concrete world and bring to
mind individuated characters. Music cannot imitate speech, represent
thought, narrate actions, or express causal relations. Its mimetic abili-
ties are limited to the imitation of aural phenomena: the gurgling of a
brook, the song of birds, or the rumbling of thunder. Yet in the 19th
century, composers frequently attempted to tell stories through music
by patterning their works according to what musicologists call a “nar­
rative program.” These programs, expressed in words, instruct the
listener’s imagination to look for a precise theme in each part of the
composition: for instance, “Awakening of joyful sensations on arrival
in the country” and “Scenes at a brook” as the titles of movements in
Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony. More recently, a school of musicol-
ogy has postulated the existence of a “deep narrativity” inherent to all
music (or at least, to all music of the classical Western tradition). To
tease out this deep narrativity, scholars resort to well-known narrato­
logical models such as Greimas’ semiotic square and Propp’s functions
(Tarasti 2004), Ricœur’s theory of narrative temporality (Grabócz
1999), or the classical plot schema of equilibrium, conflict and resolu­
tion (Seaton 2005). Comparisons have also been made with diegetic
and mimetic modes of storytelling (Abbate 1989), leading to the con­
clusion that music is a mimetic mode when it stands by itself, but ful­
fills a diegetic function when it is used in plurimedial works such as
film and musicals (Rabinowitz 2004). In mimetic modes, according to
 Narration in Various Media 277

the narrative school, music itself counts as narrative action, while in

diegetic modes, it comments upon the enacted events.
The appeal of the concept of narrative to both composers and musi­
cologists can be explained by the temporal dimension of music. Narra-
tive lives from a succession of events that brings transformations to the
state of the storyworld, while music lives from a succession of sounds
that creates melody and harmony through transformations in pitch,
rhythm, and loudness. The term “line” is used to describe the develop­
ment of both plot and melody, and in each case, this line controls atten­
tion, builds expectations, and creates effects of suspense, curiosity, and
surprise (Sternberg 1992). But unlike verbal narrative, music does not
suggest the passing of time by showing its effects on concrete exist­
ents: it captures time in its pure form, as a forward movement, a desire-
for-something-to-come, a tension calling for a resolution. In music as in
narrative, the appreciator may have a powerful sense that a dénouement
is imminent (perhaps more so in music, for in literature the coming end
is often signaled not by narrative devices, but by the number of pages
left to be read). Through its modest descriptive abilities, music can
sometimes sketch a setting (cf. Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony), and
in what amounts to creating its own conventional “language,” it can in­
dividuate characters by linking them to a specific instrument or to a
leitmotiv. It also possesses an ability unequalled among semiotic media
to represent and induce emotions. But these features are not sufficient
to tell specific stories. In contrast to the narrativity of language-based
texts, the narrativity of music is neither determinate nor literal. It is in­
determinate because narrative content is something that is read into a
composition rather than read from it (Wolf 2005). Even when music in­
structs the listener to associate the composition with a certain story,
every listener fills in the general pattern in a highly personal way (Nat­
tiez 1990), and many listeners will appreciate the composition without
giving any thought to a narrative interpretation. This would be unthink­
able with a language-based story. Meanwhile, from the point of view of
the musicologist who uses narratological models to analyze particular
compositions, the alleged narrativity of music is the product of a meta­
phor based on a structural analogy. Music and language-based stories
present similar formal patterns, but these patterns are filled with vastly
different substance: intrinsically meaningless sound in the case of mu­
sic (though of course musical arrangement creates its own type of
meaning), concrete semantic content in the case of language-based
stories. As the focus of interest of a scholarly approach, the narrativity
of music is a purely analytical construct situated, cognitively, on a very
different level than the narrativity of language, film, or even pictures
278 Narration in Various Media

because it can exercise its power without being consciously recog­

nized.

3.5 Combining Sensory and Semantic Dimensions

into Plurimedial Texts

Given the overwhelming storytelling superiority of language, one may

wonder why mankind ever bothered to develop other narrative media.
The limited narrative power of non-verbal media does not mean, how­
ever, that they cannot make original contributions to the formation of
narrative meaning. The affordances of language, pictures, movement,
and music complement each other, and when they are used together in
multi-channel media, each of them builds a different facet of the total
imaginative experience: language narrates through its logic and its abi-
lity to model the human mind, pictures through their immersive spatial­
ity and visuality, movement through its dynamic temporality, and mu­
sic through its atmosphere-creating, tension building and emotional
power.
The ultimate goal of art is to involve the whole of the embodied
mind, the intellect as well as the senses. To achieve this wholeness,
sensorial art forms must be coaxed into conveying messages, while lan­
guage-based art forms must be taught to appeal to the senses. Through
narrativization, sensorial arts acquire a sharper mental dimension, and
through collaboration with sensorial signs, language-based narrative al­
lows a fuller experience of the storyworld. In multi-channel media, the
appreciator can directly see, hear, and maybe even interact with ob­
jects, and the imagination, relieved from the cognitive burden of simu­
lating sensory data, can more easily immerse itself in the story. But this
does not mean that multi-channel media are automatically superior to
literature in narrative power because every gain in the visual, aural or
even interactive domain may bring a loss of attention to the language
channel (e.g. for the relation between audiovisual and voice-over narra­
tion in film Kozloff 1988: 8–22).

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) What structural types of plot are particularly well suited to indi­
vidual media? (b) How does medium affect narrative techniques (e.g.
which media allow discourse features such as temporal reordering,
evaluation, digressions, effects of suspense and surprise, irony, unreli­
ability)? (c) How do media compensate for their narrative deficiencies?
(d) How do newly developed media progressively free themselves from
 Narration in Various Media 279

the influence of older media and discover their own narrative “lan­
guage”? (e) What social practices are generated by the “cult narratives”
of mass media (e.g. practices such as the creation of fan communities
on the Internet, fan fiction, spoiling, online discussions of plots)? (f) In
which media, besides language, does fictionality exist? (g) What forms
does (or will) narrative take in interactive environments?

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Abbate, Carolyn (1989). “What the Sorcerer Said.” 19th-Century Music 12, 221–30.
Aristotle (1996). Poetics. Tr. & intr. M. Heath. London: Penguin Books.
Bal, Mieke (1991). Reading Rembrandt: Beyond the Word-Image Opposition. New
York: Cambridge UP.
Barthes, Roland ([1966] 1977). “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative.”
Image Music Text. New York: Hill & Wang, 79–124.
– ([1980] 1981). Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill &
Wang.
Baudrillard, Jean ([1981] 1994). Simulacra and Simulations. Ann Arbor: U of
Michigan P.
Bordwell, David (1985). Narrative in the Fiction Film. Madison: U of Wisconsin P.
– & Kristin Thompson (2008). Film Art. An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Bremond, Claude (1973). Logique du récit. Paris: Seuil.
Bolter, Jay David & Richard Grusin (1999). Remediation: Understanding New Media.
Cambridge: MIT P.
Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Dautenhahn, Kirsten (2003). “Stories of Lemurs and Robots: The Social Origin of
Story-Telling.” M. Mateas & Ph. Sengers (eds). Narrative Intelligence. Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 63–90; also on WWW at
[httü:///homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd/kdnarrative.pdf].
Deleuze, Gilles ([1983] 1986). Cinema 1: The Movement Image. Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota P.
– ([1985] 1989). Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
Foster, Susan Leigh (1996). Choreography and Narrative. Bloomington: U of Indiana
P.
Grabócz, Márta (1999). “Paul Ricœur’s Theories of Narrative and Their Relevance for
Musical Narrativity.” Indiana Theory Review 20, 19–40.
Hirsch, Marianne (1997). Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory.
Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Hutcheon, Linda & Michael Hutcheon (1999). Opera: Desire, Disease, Death. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
Kozloff, Sarah (1988). Invisible Storytellers. Voice-Over Narration in American Fic­
tion Film. Berkeley: U of California P.
280 Narration in Various Media

– (1992). “Narrative Theory and Television.” R. C. Allen (ed). Channels of Dis­

course, Reassembled. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 43–71.
Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City. Studies in the Black English Ver­
nacular. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P.
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim ([1766] 1984). Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Paint­
ing and Poetry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
McCloud, Scott (1994). Understanding Comics. New York: Harper Perennials.
McLuhan, Marshall (1996). E. McLuhan & F. Zingrone (eds). Essential McLuhan.
New York: Basic Books.
Metz, Christian ([1968] 1974). Film Language. A Semiotics of the Cinema. New York:
Oxford UP.
Meyrowitz, Joshua (1993). “Images of Media: Hidden Ferment—and Harmony—in the
Field.” Journal of Communications 43, 55–66.
Ong, Walter J. (1982). Orality and Literacy. The Technologizing of the Word. London:
Methuen.
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). “Can one Speak of Narrativity in Music?” Journal of the
Royal Musical Association 115, 240–57.
Rabinowitz, Peter (2004). “Music, Genre, and Narrative Theory.” M.-L. Ryan (ed).
Narrative across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P,
305–28.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (2007). “Toward a Definition of Narrative.” D. Herman (ed). The
Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 22–35.
Seaton, Douglas (2005). “Narrative in Music: The Case of Beethoven’s ‘Tempest’ So-
nata.” J. Ch. Meister (ed). Narratology beyond Literary Criticism. Mediality, Dis­
ciplinarity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 65–82.
Steiner, Wendy ([1988] 2004). “Pictorial Narrativity.” M.-L. Ryan (ed). Narrative
across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 145–77.
Sternberg, Meir (1992). “Telling in Time (II): Chronology, Teleology, Narrativity.”
Poetics Today 13, 463–541.
Tarasti, Eero (2004). “Music as Narrative Art.” M.-L. Ryan (ed). Narrative across Me­
dia: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 283–304.
Thompson, Kristin (2003). Storytelling in Film and Television. Cambridge: Harvard
UP.
Turner, Mark (1996). The Literary Mind. New York: Oxford UP.
Varga, A. Kibédi (1988). “Stories Told by Pictures.” Style 22, 194–208.
Wolf, Werner (2005). “Intermediality”; “Music and Narrative”; and “Pictorial Narrati-
vity.” D. Herman et al. (eds). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory.
London: Routledge, 252–56, 324–29, and 431–35.
– (2008). “The Relevance of ‘Mediality’ and ‘Intermediality’ to Academic Studies of
English Literature.” M. Heusser et al. (eds). Mediality / Intermediality. Göttingen:
Narr, 15–43.
Worth, Sol (1981). “Pictures Can’t Say Ain’t.” S. W. Studying Visual Communication.
Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 162–84.
 Narration in Various Media 281

5.2 Further Reading

Kafalenos, Emma (2001). “Reading Visual Art, Making—and Forgetting—Fabulas.”
Narrative 9.2, 138–45.
– (2004). “Overview of the Music and Narrative Field.” M.-L. Ryan (ed). Narrative
across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 275–82.
Nünning, Vera & Ansgar Nünning, eds. (2002). Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, interme­
dial, interdisziplinär. Trier: WVT.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (2005). “On the Theoretical Foundation of Transmedial Narrato­
logy.” J. Ch. Meister (ed). Narratology Beyond Literary Criticism. Mediality, Dis­
ciplinarity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1–23.
– (2006). Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
Wolf, Werner (2002). “Das Problem der Narrativität in Literatur, Bildender Kunst und
Musik: Ein Beitrag zu einer Intermedialen Erzähltheorie.” V. Nünning & A. Nün­
ning (eds). Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär. Trier: WVT,
23–104.
 Narrative Constitution
Michael Scheffel

1 Definition

In general terms, the term “narrative constitution” refers to the compo-

sition of narratives. In a narrower sense, it involves structural models
with two or more tiers that, following the tradition of formalism and
structuralism, divide the narrative work into various levels and treat it
as the product of a series of transformations (understood in a more or
less formal sense) of a set of happenings. In a wider sense, though, the
concept touches on the basic questions attached to the construction of
narratological models in any form. It concerns, in fact, the theoretical
modeling—which can differ widely depending on the methodological
approach taken—of both the relationship between happenings and nar­
rative and the relationship between literary and non-literary narration.

2 Explication

Building on corresponding formulations associated with Russian for-

malism, Schmid introduced the expression “narrative constitution” into
narratological discussion and has retained the term in a prominent
piece of recent work (1982, 1984, 2005: 223–72). Schmid uses narra-
tive constitution to refer to the structural models of narrative that have
emerged in the tradition of formalism and structuralism and been de­
veloped with reference to works of literary, i.e. fictional narrative. The
work is understood here as an object sui generis and divided into indi­
vidual levels (understood as tiers of its constitution); in the process,
certain narrative operations are paired with the transformations that
lead from the natural order of the narrated happenings (the ordo na-
turalis of rhetoric) to the artificial arrangement of the narrative (the
ordo artificialis). Various binary oppositions have been put forward,
such as fabula/sujet (e.g. Tomaševskij 1925), histoire/discours (e.g.
Todorov 1966; story/discourse), and story/plot (e.g. Forster 1927), as
have multileveled models such as Geschehen/Geschichte/Text der Ge-
schichte (Stierle 1971; happenings/story/text of the story), histoire/ré­
283 Narrative Constitution

cit/narration (Genette 1972, 1983; story/narrative/narrating), and Ge-

schehen/Geschichte/Erzählung/Präsentation der Erzählung (Schmid
1982; happenings/story/narration/presentation of the narration). These
distinctions provide a framework in which the approaches involved at­
tempt to grasp the construction of narrative works in a theo-retical
manner and represent it as the transformation of a set of happenings in
a generative manner in the sense of an abstract model of production.
Where the modeling of the relationship between happenings and narra-
tive is concerned, these approaches can be said to make the happenings
logically antecedent to the narrative itself. In the sense of the distinc­
tion between the “two principles of narrative” elucidated by Culler, in
other words, they assume a theoretical “priority of events” posited in
the case of fictional narrative (1981: esp. 179, 186–87). Even if we
subscribe to the theoretical premises of approaches with a text-internal
or formalist orientation, the practicality of such models is affected not
least by the fact that their authors, though sharing the idea that narra-
tive works can be decomposed into levels or components, often have
very different starting points and sometimes even associate signifi-
cantly different meanings and concepts with a particular term
(Martínez & Scheffel 1999: 26, for a comparative table of the basic
terms used by nineteen theorists from Propp to Schmid).
In actual fact, the study of narrative composition should be confined
neither to a text-internal perspective nor to works of literary narrative.
Thus, against the background of a newly developed interest in narration
as one of the fundamental forms of human cultural activity, more re­
cent narratological approaches have adopted a broader understanding
of the concept of narrative constitution, in the context of which they
take into consideration the problem of the relationship between narra-
tive and reality in general (→ fictional vs. factual narration). The his­
toriographical theorist White took a crucial step in this direction when,
in the 1970s, he developed several theses regarding the fiction of the
factual. These theses have been taken up repeatedly in the context of
post-structuralism. They are based on a multileveled, originally ab­
stract model of production in the tradition of formalism and structural­
ism, and transfer this model of the narrative constitution of fictional
narratives to the at first sight non-fictional narratives of historiography
and their relationship to historical reality (→ narration in various dis­
ciplines). On this basis, White set out a theory of “emplotment”: this
theory takes the form of a typology of how meaning is generated
through narrative and treats the transformation of happenings into sto-
ries as, at base, a process that gives rise to literature (in this case, the
set of happenings presents itself as a product of the narrative, creating
 Narrative Constitution 284

an unbridgeable gap between historical reality and all narratives of any

kind). White’s concept of emplotment has been cited many times in the
context of the narrative turn in cultural studies. Ricœur takes an anal-
ogous approach when he writes about how a reality that is in and of it­
self contingent is subjected to a fundamental reshaping by a process of
mise en intrigue (rendered as “emplotment” by his translators) that is
bound up with narrative. In his far more complex concept of a narrative
hermeneutics, however, Ricœur—unlike White—takes as his starting
point the idea that there is a mutual relationship between narrative and
human activity, and that the concept of narrative constitution applies to
essential parts of the reality of human life in general.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 Russian Formalism and the Opposition between Fabula and Sujet

The beginning of systematic interest in the composition of narrative

works belongs to a time when the attention of literary scholars came to
be directed toward the question of literariness and with it the problem
of the characteristic form of literature. Against this historical back­
ground in the first quarter of the 20th century, one model emerged that
was to have a greater influence than any other on subsequent literary
research. This model was developed in the context of Russian formal­
ism. The model, which has two tiers, is based on the opposition gener­
ally described using the terms fabula and sujet. Where details are con­
cerned, though, Ėjxenbaum, Šklovskij, Tomaševskij, Tynjanov, Vygot­
skij, and other theorists proceed from markedly different starting
points, using the corresponding terms with different, sometimes even
opposing meanings in each case (for detailed reconstructions, see e.g.
Volek 1977; García Landa 1998: 32–48; Schmid 2005: 224–36).
From a historical perspective, the use of the terms fabula and sujet
in the manner of a binary opposition can be seen to begin with Šklov-
skij. The locus classicus for their definition is to be found in an essay
in which, at the end of a detailed consideration of the idiosyncratic nar­
rative form of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Šklovskij points out the chro­
nological differences between chains of events in “actual life” and in
art. In this context, he stresses that the “aesthetic laws” of artistic nar­
rative can be grasped only if we distinguish between sujet and fabula.
In the process, Šklovskij explains that the fabula should be understood
as the “material for sujet formation” and the sujet as the material of the
fabula in artistic form ([1925] 1991: 170; Schmid 2009). It is clear here
and in other contexts that Šklovskij, like most other Russian formalists
285 Narrative Constitution

after him, does not associate the fabula with a neutral, given phe­
nomenon. Instead, in contrast to the sujet, which is understood as bear­
ing the literariness of the narrative work, he sees the fabula as some­
thing subordinate that is overcome, so to speak, in the work of art (in
the same historical context, the opposite is the case in the work of
Propp [1928] which, with its model of actants and functions, was con­
cerned solely with the plot structure of narrative works, and more pre­
cisely with the rules governing constitution of the fabula).
Numerous Russian formalists took up the pair of terms during the
1920s and put what were at times very different slants on it. Tomašev-
skij used and popularized the fabula/sujet distinction in a way that re­
tained at least something of Šklovskij’s understanding of it. In the first
edition of his textbook-like Teorija literatury (1925, revised 1928),
which found a relatively wide readership in Western European literary
studies, a footnote deleted from later editions contains the concise,
much-quoted formulation that “in short, the fabula is that ‘which really
was,’ the sujet that ‘how the reader has learnt about it’” ([1925] 1991:
137). In the main text of the work, on the other hand, Tomaševskij
provides a more nuanced definition of the fabula as “the totality of mo­
tifs in their logical causal-temporal chain” and the sujet as “the totality
of the same motifs in that sequence and connectivity in which they are
presented in the work” (Černov 1977: 40). Thus, here and in other pas­
sages of his Teorija literatury, Tomaševskij—in contrast to Šklovskij
—associates the fabula with the property of causally connected motifs
(in the sense of events). To this extent, it contains more than the aes­
thetically indifferent, preliterary happenings, and is, even if Tomašev-
skij himself does not say so directly, already part of the artistic fashion­
ing of the work.

3.2 Story and Plot in the Work of E. M. Forster and other

English-speaking Scholars of the 1920s to the 1940s

Roughly contemporaneously with the Russian formalists, Forster

(1927) outlined a two-tiered model based on the terms “story” and
“plot.” Forster sees the story as “the lowest and simplest of literary or­
ganisms,” explaining that “it is a narrative of events arranged in their
time sequence—dinner coming after breakfast, Tuesday after Monday,
decay after death, and so on” ([1927] 1972: 35). As for plot, the fol­
lowing comment in the book was soon to become famous: “We have
defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence.
A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.
‘The king died and then the queen died,’ is a story. ‘The king died, and
 Narrative Constitution 286

then the queen died of grief,’ is a plot” (93). For Forster, then, the cru­
cial difference between story and plot lies in the move from simple
chronology to causality—in the establishment of a causal relationship
between individual events. If we consider the fabula/sujet opposition of
the formalists with this in mind, it becomes clear that Forster’s model
should not be understood as straightforwardly analogous to the two
terms of Russian origin (Volek 1977: 147–48; Sternberg 1978: 8–14,
for a detailed description of the terms and concepts involved, and Pier
2003: 77–78, for a discussion of the issue of translating Russian fabula
and sujet into English). The concept of sujet has no direct equivalent in
Forster’s work; what Forster refers to with “plot” would seem to cor­
respond to the meaning fabula has for Tomaševskij; and Forster’s
concept of story corresponds to what the formalists either consider part
of the fabula but do not name or, like Tomaševskij, say, distinguish
from the fabula and call xronika (“chronicle”; Tomaševskij [1925]
1965: 215).
If we exclude the case of Muir, who refers to plot and story but uses
the terms imprecisely and at times synonymously (e.g. [1928] 1979:
16–17), it was above all the term “plot,” frequently associated with the
Aristotelian concept of muthos, that was soon taken up by other schol­
ars in the English-speaking countries. From the 1930s onward, they
used it as a central category in work on the composition of narrative
works (reconstructions of this process can be found in e.g. García
Landa 1998: 48–60). Brooks & Warren provided a widely known
definition: “Plot, we may say, is the structure of an action as it is
presented in a piece of fiction. It is not, we shall note, the structure of
an action as we happen to find it out in the world, but the structure
within a story. It is, in other words, what the teller of the story has done
to the action in order to present it to us” ([1943] 1959: 77).

3.3 Histoire and Discours in French Structuralism and

Classical Narratology

The reception of the texts of Russian formalism in Western Europe

began around the middle of the 20th century. As part of this process,
French structuralism picked up the terms fabula and sujet and replaced
them in the 1960s with the binary oppositions of récit/narration
(Barthes 1966) and histoire/discours (Todorov 1966). The two-layered
model of histoire and discours has spread far beyond the boundaries of
French structuralism and stands out as highly successful from a
present-day point of view. It was developed, building on Tomaševskij
(1925), by Todorov, a Bulgarian whose academic background lay in
287 Narrative Constitution

Slavonic studies in Sofia (in fact, Todorov drew the terms histoire and
discours from a model developed by the linguist Benveniste, who actu­
ally uses them to mean something different, namely the contrast to be
found in the tense system of French between forms of narration with
and without a clearly apparent speaking entity, discours and histoire re­
spectively; Benveniste 1959). Todorov’s formulation is still potentially
compatible with Tomaševskij when he writes: “At the most general
level, the literary work has two aspects: it is at the same time a story
[histoire] and a discourse [discours]. It is story, in the sense that it
evokes a certain reality […]. But the work is at the same time discourse
[…]. At this level, it is not the events reported which count but the
manner in which the narrator makes them known to us” ([1966] 1980:
5).
These same words, though, also suggest that the terms histoire and
discours are not simply translations of fabula and sujet. Apart from
various studies of narrative grammar by Bremond and others (see for
example Bremond 1964; Greimas 1967; Todorov 1969), which stand in
the tradition of Propp and concentrate entirely on the constitution of
the histoire, the subsequent use of the terms histoire and discours in
French structuralism and its successors confirms that both the exten­
sion of the two terms and the theoretical framework involved have
been altered in certain ways.
Unlike Šklovskij, say, who associates the sujet with the dynamic
nature and special quality of a principle of literary composition, the
French structuralists take discours to mean primarily the result, as it
presents itself in the individual narrative work, of a certain way of me­
diating the set of happenings. Indeed, in contrast to the Russian formal­
ists, histoire and discours are explicitly treated as having equal status:
“the two aspects, the story [histoire] and the discourse [discours], are
both equally literary” (Todorov [1966] 1980: 5). Neither of the two
components has priority over the other, which accords well with the
fact that writers such as Barthes and Genette drew up their narratologi-
cal models against the background of the theory of the linguistic sign
developed by Saussure. They treat the relationship between histoire
and discours as analogous to the dichotomy between signifier and sig­
nified. The two terms are openly understood as having a greater exten­
sion, though. Tomaševskij’s sujet, for example, relates primarily to the
order of events in their literary representation; yet as early as Todorov,
discours subsumes the literary mediation of a set of happenings in its
entirety (not just the sequence of events, that is to say, but also such
features as perspective, style, mode, and so on). And unlike To­
maševskij’s fabula, which consists only of those parts of the narrated
 Narrative Constitution 288

world of relevance to the plot, Todorov’s histoire explicitly contains

not just the set of happenings itself, but also the overarching continuum
of the narrated world, the continuum within which the set of happen­
ings unfolds.
Finally, we may mention Chatman. Building on the development
from Russian formalism to French structuralism just described, he has
concisely described the canonical view of the two-tier model of his­
toire and discours in classical narratology as follows: “each narrative
has two parts: a story (histoire), the content or chain of events (actions,
happenings), plus what may be called the existents (characters, items of
setting); and a discourse (discours), that is, the expression, the means
by which the content is communicated. In simple terms, the story is the
what in a narrative that is depicted, discourse the how” (1978: 19; ital­
ics in original). This form of the two-tiered model, upheld in similar
fashion by Prince (1982), was adopted most recently by Martínez &
Scheffel (1999). Martínez & Scheffel distinguish between a level of
wie, or “how,” and a level of was, or “what.” The wie, known as the
Darstellung (representation), has two aspects: Erzählung (narrative)
and Erzählen (narration). The was is made up of the Handlung (plot)
and erzählte Welt (narrated world). In the field of Handlung, Martínez
& Scheffel distinguish further between Ereignis (event), Geschehen
(happenings), Geschichte (story), and Handlungsschema (plot schema).

3.4 Three- and Four-Tier Models

Even in the context of French structuralism itself, extensions of or re­

finements to the binary opposition between fabula/histoire on the one
hand and sujet/discours on the other were already being put forward.
For example, Genette (1972) outlined a three-part framework to which
he returned in (1983). On the one hand, he retains the term histoire,
which he defines as “the signified or narrative content.” On the other
side of the dichotomy, though, Genette replaces discours, which he cri­
ticizes for being heterogeneous, with the terms récit and narration. By
récit, Genette means “the signifier, statement, discourse or narrative
text itself”; by narration, in contrast, he means “the producing narra-
tive action and, by extension, the whole of the real or fictional situation
in which that action takes place” ([1972] 1980: 27). Genette’s triad of
histoire/récit/narration reappears in the guise of different terms, but
essentially unchanged with respect to content, as story/text/narration in
Rimmon-Kenan (1983; similar also is story/plot/narration in Abbott
2002). Bal (1977: 6), though, points out correctly that Genette’s con-
cept of narration operates on a different logical level from that of the
289 Narrative Constitution

two other concepts: it refers to the activity of utterance, whereas récit

and histoire refer to the result of this activity (from a theoretical point
of view, indeed, Genette did not apply his triadic system consistently:
he treats the narration under the heading of voice as part of the dis­
cours; for an alternative model that takes account of the special fea­
tures of fictional narration, see Scheffel 1997: 49–54). Bal (1985)
seeks to resolve this problem by means of a tripartite division
fabula/story/text in which text refers to the signifiers or surface struc­
ture of the story, which itself refers to the signifiers or surface structure
of the fabula.
Adopting a similar approach to Bal and Volek, who refers in Ger­
man to the triad Fabula/Sujet/Text (Volek 1977: 165), García Landa
distinguishes between three levels of the narrative work in a mono­
graph that has been influential in the Spanish-speaking countries.
These levels, essentially of equal importance, are arranged above one
another in tiers or nested within one another. They are acción (plot),
relato (narrative), and discurso narrativo (narrative discourse). By ac­
ción, García Landa means the sequence of narrated events; by relato
the presentation (‘representación’) of the narrated events (i.e. tense and
mood in Genette’s sense; → perspective); and by discurso the presen-
tation of the relato, the transformation of the relato, that is to say, into
a sign system in conjunction with the act of utterance that is the narra­
ción (‘narration’). In this latter level García Landa includes what
Genette covers under voice as well as pragmatic aspects such as the
communication between author and reader (García Landa 1998: esp.
20–1; → mediacy and narrative mediation). Unlike Genette and Rim­
mon-Kenan, who take distinctions in the field of the discours as the
basis for their tripartite models, García Landa’s relato is situated in a
borderline region between discours and histoire, and he himself treats
it as a kind of intersection (a “terreno commún”) between acción and
discurso.
Stierle, meanwhile, makes clear that his proposed triad of Gesche-
hen/Geschichte/Text der Geschichte is grounded in the field of the fa-
bula. Here, Geschehen is the aesthetically neutral narrative material
implied by the Geschichte, which is understood as the result of artistic
operations that generate meaning. Text der Geschichte, on the other
hand, resembles the discours of, for example, Todorov in that it in­
cludes both the arrangement of the events as well as the Geschichte as
manifested in a medium (Stierle 1971).
The concepts of Genette and others on the one hand and those of
Stierle on the other are based on distinctions in the field of the discours
and the fabula, respectively. They are developed further, or indeed in a
 Narrative Constitution 290

sense synthesized, in Schmid’s four-tiered model of Geschehen/Ge-

schichte/Erzählung/Presentation der Erzählung. Schmid developed his
model at the beginning of the 1980s and has defended it again in the re­
cent past (1982, 1984, 2005, 2007). According to this framework, Ge-
schehen is the “implied raw material” for selections whose output con­
stitutes the Geschichte, understood in the sense of Tomaševskij’s fa-
bula and Todorov’s histoire (selected happenings in ordo naturalis).
Erzählung, on the other hand, is “the result of the ‘composition’ that
arranges the happenings in an ordo artificialis,” and Präsentation der
Erzählung means the representation of the Geschichte in a particular
medium (the result, that is, of the elocutio; cf. 2005: 241–72). Schmid
treats the Präsentation der Erzählung as a pheno-level, the only level
accessible to empirical observation, whereas the three other levels are
geno-levels that can be arrived at only by means of abstraction. In addi­
tion, Schmid’s model assumes that the four levels can be identified
from changing angles, specifically from the producer’s or recipient’s
side of the narrative work. If we move in an upward direction, an ab­
stract perspective on production takes shape, extending from the Ge-
schehen to the Präsentation der Erzählung; if we move in the opposite
direction, namely downward, a semiotic perspective, the beginnings of
which can also be found in Bal and others, takes shape. Seen from this
latter perspective, the Präsentation der Erzählung is a signifier denot­
ing the signified Erzählung, which itself is a signifier pointing to the
Geschichte as a third level, and so on.

3.5 Narrative Constitution in Historiographical and

Philosophical Theory

In the 1970s, White (1973) adopted the model of narrative constitution

in the formalist and structuralist tradition and applied it to the descrip­
tion of historiographical texts. So, something originally concerned with
literary texts and meant as an abstract model of production—one ab­
stracting away from the actual process by which narratives are made—
is openly applied to non-fictional narratives, their actual genesis, and
their relationship to historical reality. White uses the terms “historical
field,” “chronicle,” “story,” and “emplotment” to describe the genesis
of a historiographical work as follows. Historians are presented with
their material, the elements of the historical field, in the form of events.
The first step involves arranging these events into a chronologically
ordered chronicle. The second step involves transforming this chrono­
logical sequence of events into a structured unity in the guise of a story
with beginning, middle, and end; in the process, individual events ac­
291 Narrative Constitution

quire the function of initial motifs, transitional motifs, and the like.
There then remains the question of the story’s meaning. According to
White, this question involves the problem of explaining the set of hap­
penings in the sense of grasping “the structure of the entire set of
events considered as a completed story” (1973: 7; italics in original).
This is where emplotment comes in, a concept much quoted in the con­
text of the narrative turn in cultural studies but used somewhat vaguely
by White himself. There is a famous passage in which White defines it
thus: “Providing the ‘meaning’ of a story by identifying the kind of
story that has been told is called explanation by emplotment” (1973: 7;
italics in original). For White, then, who does not make a precise theo-
retical distinction between the acts of production and reception, the
meaning of a story takes shape as the historian shapes or discerns a plot
in the story formed on the basis of the chronicle: the events arranged
into a story, that is to say, are subsumed into a particular plot schema
(→ schemata) (“Thus, in telling a story, the historian necessarily re­
veals a plot;” 1978: 52). Drawing on Frye (1957), White assumes fur­
ther that there is a limited number of archetypal “modes of emplot­
ment” (mythoi in the sense of Frye’s Poetics-based terminology) that
can provide a story with meaning, irrespective of whether it is a case of
literary or non-literary narration. Specifically, White believes there are
four such modes of emplotment: romance, tragedy, comedy, and satire.
If we recall now the origins of the two-tiered model for works of lit­
erary narrative in Russian formalism, it becomes clear that White in his
Metahistory employs an essentially comparable model of narrative con­
stitution with precisely the opposite objective. Šklovskij develops the
concept of a sujet that should be distinguished from the fabula, and
does so in order to set a certain emphasis by treating the fact of being
artificial as an essential quality of a particular form of narration, spe­
cifically literary narration (with Šklovskij seeing the function of this
form of narration as being “to return sensation to our limbs” [(1925)
1991: 6]). White, on the other hand, uses the idea of emplotment, sit-
uated on a level between fabula and sujet, to show that the transforma­
tion of happenings into stories necessarily involves a process of making
literature; the signs are that this process is understood as one of fiction­
alization (accordingly in this respect, White describes historiographical
narration as “essentially a literary, that is to say fiction-making opera­
tion;” 1978: 85).
Ricœur takes an analogous approach to White when, in discussing
narratives, he writes about how a reality that is in and of itself contin­
gent is subjected to a fundamental reshaping by a “synthesis of the het­
erogeneous” in the form of a process of mise en intrigue (rendered as
 Narrative Constitution 292

“emplotment” by his translators). By this, Ricœur means “the operation

that draws a configuration out of a simple succession” ([1983/85]
1984/88, vol. 1: 5); configuration here, similarly to White’s emplot­
ment, is linked to the Aristotelian concept of muthos, a story, that is to
say, in the sense of a whole with beginning, middle, and end. Thus, for
Ricœur, too, it is a fundamental fact that narratives of every kind have
the nature of creative constructions. In the context of the “narrative
hermeneutics” (Meuter 1994) outlined by Ricœur, though, the relation­
ship between happenings and narrative should be conceived of not
simply in the sense of an unbridgeable gap but, in so far as the happen­
ings are concerned with human action, in the sense of a special kind of
mutual relationship. The following ideas from Ricœur’s complex theo-
retical approach are significant where the issue of narrative constitution
is concerned. Ricœur links the principle of configuration to the Aris­
totelian concept of mimesis and distinguishes between three levels,
which he identifies as mimesis I, mimesis II, and mimesis III. Mimesis
II refers to the structure and medium of the narrative, ultimately, that
is, to Todorov’s discours or Schmid’s Erzählung and Präsentation der
Erzählung. Mimesis I and mimesis III, on the other hand, involve that
on which the narrative depends and that to which it gives rise. Roughly
speaking, in other words, mimesis I (prefiguration) concerns the world
in which people act and the models for their actions; mimesis II (con­
figuration) relates more or less directly to that world; and mimesis III
(refiguration) concerns the recipient’s realization of the mise en in­
trigue manifested in mimesis II. The recipient here is himself influ­
enced more or less directly in his activity (including the models that de­
termine his image of himself and of the world in which people act) by
the reception of mimesis II.
Thus, in contrast to the structural models of narrative constitution
belonging to the formalist and structuralist tradition, Ricœur’s idea of a
narrative hermeneutics does far more than identify the formal construc­
tion of narratives. Furthermore, his perspective on the question of nar­
rative constitution, widened as it is by the idea of interplay between ex­
perience and narrative, reveals new angles of research for a context-
based narratology with an interest in the pragmatics of narrative: “For a
semiotic theory, the only operative concept is that of the literary text.
Hermeneutics, however, is concerned with reconstructing the entire arc
of operations by which practical experience provides itself with works,
authors, and readers. […] What is at stake, therefore, is the process by
which the textual configuration mediates between the prefiguration of
the practical field and its refiguration through the reception of the
work” ([1983/85] 1984/88, vol. 1: 53).
293 Narrative Constitution

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) The place of voice as a text- and fiction-internal pragmatic dimen­

sion of the narrative in models of narrative constitution has not to date
been properly described where fictional narration is concerned. (b) If
we follow Ricœur in considering the problem of narrative constitution
in the broader sense of a narrative hermeneutics, we are presented with
a wide range of questions to be tackled both by empirical studies of the
interplay between human experience and narrative and by work on its
theoretical foundations.
(Translated by Alastair Matthews)

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Abbott, H. Porter ([2002] 2008). The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cam­
bridge: Cambridge UP.
Bal, Mieke (1977). Narratologie. Les instances du récit. Essais sur la signification
narrative dans quatre romans modernes. Paris: Klincksieck.
– ([1985] 1997). Narratology. Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: U of
Toronto P.
Barthes, Roland ([1966] 1977). “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives.”
R. B. Image Music Text. London: Fontana, 79–124.
Benveniste, Émile ([1959] 1971). “The Correlations of Tense in the French Verb.”
É. B. Problems in General Linguistics. Coral Gables: U of Miami P, 205–15.
Bremond, Claude (1964). “Le message narrative.” Communication No 4, 4–32.
Brooks, Cleanth & Robert Penn Warren ([1943] 1959). Understanding Fiction. Engle­
wood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Černov, Igor’ (Chernov, Igor) (1977). “A Contextual Glossary of Formalist Terminol-
ogy.” A. Shukman & L. M. O’Toole (eds). Formalist Theory (Russian Poetics in
Translation 4). Oxford: Holdan, 13–48.
Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Culler, Jonathan (1981). “Story and Discourse in the Analysis of Narrative.” J. C. The
Pursuit of Signs. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 169−87.
Forster, Edward M. ([1927] 1972). Aspects of the Novel. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Frye, Northrop (1957). Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton UP.
García Landa, José Ángel (1998). Acción, relato, discurso. Estructura de la ficción
narrativa. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
– ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Greimas, Algirdas Julien ([1967] 1970). “La structure des actants du récit. Essai d’ap­
proche génerative.” A. J. G. Du sens. Essais sémiotiques. Paris: Seuil, 249–70.
 Narrative Constitution 294

Martínez, Matías & Michael Scheffel ([1999] 2007). Einführung in die Erzähltheorie.
München: Beck.
Meuter, Norbert (1994). “Prä-Narrativität. Ein Organisationsprinzip unseres Handelns.”
Studia Culturologica 3, 119–40.
Muir, Edwin ([1928] 1979). The Structure of the Novel. London: Chatto & Windus.
Pier, John (2003). “On the Semiotic Parameters of Narrative: A Critique of Story and
Discourse.” T. Kindt & H.-H. Müller (eds). What Is Narratology? Questions and
Answers Regarding the Status of a Theory. Berlin: de Gruyter, 73–97.
Prince, Gerald (1982). Narratology. The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin:
Mouton.
Propp, Vladimir ([1928] 1968). Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: U of Texas P.
Ricœur, Paul ([1983/1985] 1984/1988). Time and Narrative. 3 vols. Chicago: U of
Chicago P.
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics.
London: Methuen.
Scheffel, Michael (1997). Formen selbstreflexiven Erzählens. Eine Typologie und
sechs exemplarische Analysen. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Schmid, Wolf (1982). “Die narrativen Ebenen ‘Geschehen,’ ‘Geschichte,’ ‘Erzählung’
und ‘Präsentation der Erzählung’.” Wiener slawistischer Almanach 9, 83–110.
– (1984). “Der Ort der Erzählperspektive in der narrativen Konstitution.” J. J. van
Baak (ed). Signs of Friendship. To Honour A. G. F. van Holk, Slavist, Linguist, Se­
miotician. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 523–52.
– (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
– (2007). “La constitution narrative: les événéments―l’histoire―le récit―la présent­
ation du récit.“ J. Pier (ed.). Théorie du récit. L’apport de la recherche allemande.
Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 153–88.
– (2009). “‘Fabel’ und ‘Sujet’.” W. Schmid (ed). Slavische Narratologie. Russische
und tschechische Ansätze. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1–45.
Šklovskij, Viktor (Shklovsky, Victor) ([1925] 1991). Theory of Prose. Elmwood Park:
Dalkey Archive P.
Sternberg, Meir (1978). Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction. Balti­
more: Johns Hopkins UP.
Stierle, Karlheinz ([1971] 1973). “Geschehen, Geschichte, Text der Geschichte.” R.
Koselleck & W. D. Stempel (eds). Geschichte―Ereignis und Erzählung. München:
Fink, 530–34.
Todorov, Tzvetan ([1966] 1980). “The Categories of Literary Narrative.” Papers on
Language and Literature 16, 3–36.
– (1969). Grammaire du Décaméron. The Hague: Mouton.
Tomaševskij, Boris ([1925] 1965). Teorija literatury. Poėtika. Moskva: Gos. Izd. Eng­
lish trans. of the chapter “Thematics” from the 1928 ed.: L. T. Lemon & M. J. Reis
(eds). Russian Formalist Criticism. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 61–95.
Volek, Emil (1977). “Die Begriffe ‘Fabel’ und ‘Sujet’ in der modernen Literaturwis­
senschaft.” Poetica 9, 141–66.
White, Hayden (1973). Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in the Nineteenth Cen­
tury. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
– (1978). Tropics of Discourse. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
 Narrative Levels
Didier Coste & John Pier

1 Definition

Narrative levels (also referred to as diegetic levels) is an analytic no­

tion whose purpose is to describe the relations among the plurality of
narrating instances within a narrative, and more specifically the vertical
relations between narrating instances. Thus, three narrative levels can
be identified in a story where a narrator reports the telling of a story by
a narrator-character within his own story: the level within the global
text at which the telling of the narrator-character’s story occurs; the
level at which the primary narrator’s discourse occurs; the level of the
narrative act situated outside the spatiotemporal coordinates of the
primary narrator’s discourse. In a broader sense, however, narrative
levels also include horizontal relations between narrating instances
situated at the same diegetic level, as when a story is told by several
narrators. The notion of narrative levels serves to describe the spatio-
temporal relations between the various narrating acts occurring in a
narrative, and can thus be thought of more accurately as “narration
levels” or “narrating levels.”

2 Explication

According to Genette, who first proposed the term, narrative level is

one of the three categories forming the narrating situation, the other
two being time of the narrating and person (1972: chap. 5). Narrative
levels, arranged bottom upwards, are extradiegetic (narrative act ex­
ternal to any diegesis), intradiegetic or diegetic (events presented in the
primary narrative), and metadiegetic (narrative embedded within the in­
tradiegetic level). What distinguishes narrative level from the tradition­
al notion of embedding is that it marks a “threshold” in the transition
from one diegesis (spatiotemporal universe within which the action
takes place) to another (Genette [1983] 1988: 84). As every narrative is
taken charge of by a narrative act, difference of level can be described
“by saying that any event a narrative recounts is at a diegetic level im­
296 Narrative Levels

mediately higher than the level at which the narrating act producing
this narrative is placed […]. The narrating instance of a first narrative
[récit premier] is therefore extradiegetic by definition, as the narrating
instance of a second (metadiegetic) narrative [récit second] is diegetic
by definition, etc.” (Genette ([1972] 1980: 228–29). Bal (1977: 35) and
Rimmon-Kenan ([1983] 2002: 92–3) invert this order, placing the die­
getic level in a “subordinate” position in relation to the extradiegetic
level. Discussions of narrative level frequently overlook the fact that it
is not an isolated category but that, forming part of the narrating sit-
uation, it correlates with a second type of diegetic relation, a relation of
person: hence a → narrator is either heterodiegetic (absent from the
narrated world), homodiegetic (present in the narrated world) or auto-
diegetic (identical with the protagonist). Together, level and person
form the narrator’s status, broken down into a four-part typology of the
narrator (Genette [1972] 1980: 248; see 3.1.1 below. On the notion of
diegesis, cf. Pier 1986).
Formulated in terms of enunciation, narrative level in effect opposes
“who speaks?” and “who acts?,” thus opening the way to a more pre­
cise description and analysis of change of level through the identifica­
tion of textual markers. Genette ([1972] 1980: 232–34) distinguishes
three types of relations binding metadiegetic narrative to primary nar­
rative: (a) explanatory, when there is a link of direct causality between
the events of the diegesis and those of the metadiegesis; (b) thematic,
by way of contrast or analogy between levels, as in an exemplum or in
mise en abyme, with a possible effect of the metadiegesis on the diege-
tic situation; (c) narrational, when the act of (secondary) narrating
merges with the present situation, diminishing the prominence of the
metadiegetic content (Rimmon-Kenan [1983] 2002: 93, names the lat­
ter relation “actional”). With reference to Barth (1981), these types
were later refined into six “functions” ordered by decreasing thematic
relation between primary and second-level narrative with increasing
emphasis on the narrative act itself: (a) explicative; (b) predictive; (c)
purely thematic; (d) persuasive; (e) distractive; (f) obstructive (Genette
[1983] 1988: 92–4). And finally, by pushing the narrative act as a
means of transition between levels yet further, as when the author or
the reader enters the domain of the characters, or vice versa, the bound­
aries between levels are violated, resulting in → metalepsis.
 Narrative Levels 297

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Analogously to → focalization, a systematization of theories of → per­

spective and point of view, narrative levels represent a narratological
response to the traditional notions of frame stories and embedded sto-
ries. Narrative level, however, is both conceptually more global than
either of these practices and more restricted. On the one hand, every
narrative, embedded or not, exists by virtue of a narrative act which is
necessarily external to the spatiotemporal universe within which the
events of that narrative take place, thus situating it in a web of narra-
ting instances. On the other hand, narrative levels come into play only
with a shift of voice, which is not always taken into account by the tra­
ditional notions (e.g. the dream sequences introduced into Nerval’s
“Aurélie” do not represent changes of level since there is no change of
narrator). At the same time, narrative levels provide a set of principles
that makes it possible to describe both frame stories and embedded
stories. Technically, a process of embedding occurs in both types, but
whereas frame stories, usually short, serve to bracket the main story
(e.g. the expository pages to Marlow’s narrative in Heart of Darkness),
embedded stories, of limited duration, remain subordinate to the pri-
mary narrative (e.g. the novella “The Curious Impertinent” in Don
Quixote). “If the tale is conceptualized as subsidiary to the primary
story frame, a relationship of embedding obtains; if the primary story
level serves as a mere introduction to the narrative proper, it will be
perceived as a framing device” (Fludernik 1996: 343; see 3.2 below).

3.1 Embedding

In a sense that bears on narrative levels only in part, embedding desig­

nates one of the three ways in which sequences can be combined syn­
tactically into more complex forms: linking; embedding; alternation
(Bremond 1973; Todorov 1966, 1971). Formally, embedding is defined
by syntactic subordination, even though it does not necessarily involve
a change of narrating instance (a digression can be related by the
primary narrator).

3.1.1 Level and Enunciation

By reformulating narrative embedding in terms of the enunciative
threshold in the transitions between levels, Genette opened up a debate
with far-reaching implications as to the nature of the relations between
levels, a debate centered, at least initially, on the prefix meta-. If under­
stood analogously to metalanguage, metanarrative (métarécit or récit
298 Narrative Levels

métadiégétique) would correspond to the embedding narrative—a

primary narrative on or about the second-level narrative. But in fact
metanarrative (or better: metadiegetic narrative) corresponds to the
events related within diegetic narrative. Genette insisted that just as the
narrating instance of the primary narrative is extradiegetic, so that of a
metadiegetic (second-level) narrative is diegetic ([1972] 1980: 229). In
order to resolve the potential terminological ambiguity, Bal points to
three usages of meta-: (a) a quoted discourse is metalinguistic in the
sense of being fictional in relation to the quoting discourse (a sense
close to Genette’s); (b) from a functionalist perspective, the quoted dis­
course is a metanarrative commentary on the quoting discourse (meta­
linguistic textual devices, etc.); (c) an abusive extension of meta- to
cover commentary of any kind (Bal 1981: 53–6; on metanarrative com­
mentary, see Nünning 2004). As for embedding proper, this occurs
when there is insertion (attributive discourse provides a link between
two discourses), subordination (which excludes juxtaposition), and ho­
mogeneity (e.g. one sequence inserted into another)—a set of relations
that comes under the prefix hypo-. On this basis, it is proposed that
“metanarrative” and “metadiegetic” be replaced, respectively, by “hy­
ponarrative” and “hypodiegetic”—a level below rather than in the die­
getic level (Bal 1977: 35; 1981: 43–53; cf. Fludernik 1996: 342; Rim­
mon-Kenan [1983] 2002: 92–6). It must be noted, however, that this re­
vision inverts the order of narrative levels in Genette’s presentation,
creating a relation of hierarchical subordination with the extradiegetic
level situated at the top, and that it does so at the expense of the intend-
ed relation of inclusion between primary and embedded narrative. The
terminological refinement thus comes at a price, since it prefigures a
hierarchical top-down ordering of narrating instances that may not per­
tain to all narratives, and also because it severs the significant link
between metanarrative and metalepsis (Genette [1983] 1988: 91–2); it
further conflicts with the specific use of hypo- in the study of hypertex­
tual relations where a hypotext (e.g. The Odyssey) is prior to a hyper­
text (e.g. Ulysses) (Genette 1982). Interestingly, Bal later abandoned
her neologisms and radically altered the notion of narrative level itself.
Her comments on “levels of narrative,” based on grammatical subor­
dination of the actor’s text by the narrator’s text, are devoted to various
forms of → speech representation, while embedding, which she ex­
plains as text interference between actor’s text and narrator’s text, re­
verts to the traditional concept in which an embedded fabula serves to
explain or to explain and determine the primary fabula or in which
there is a relation of resemblance between the two (Bal [1985] 1997:
43–60). As a result, the threshold marking the transition between
 Narrative Levels 299

diegeses disappears, and with it the vectors of embedding/embedded

and narrating instance constitutive of narrative level.
Narrative levels, then, cover the enunciative situation of narrative in
general as well as various forms of embedded narrative. A multifaceted
concept, embedding can be found in various disciplines including lin­
guistics, logic, psychology, communication, computer science, etc.
With reference to the criteria of punctuation and continuum, boundary,
and logical levels that characterize the concept in these fields, Füredy
(1989) identified the more extreme forms of embedding found in artist­
ic representation: (a) intact and multiplying boundary (e.g. mise en
abyme, which in principle is open to infinite recursion); (b) intact but
reified boundary (escape from the undecidable and oscillating bound­
ary built into Escher’s Drawing Hands is possible only through access
to an otherwise inviolate metalevel); (c) transgressed boundary (meta­
lepsis). In the field of conversation analysis (→ conversational narra­
tion/oral narration), by contrast, embedding, which is more closely
bound up with context, is referred to as “embeddedness.” Thus a nar­
rative of personal experience will be embedded in accordance not with
syntactic subordination or logical level so much as it is with surround­
ing discourse (explanation, prayer, etc.) and social activity (frequency
and length of turn-taking, degree of thematic and rhetorical integration
into the general conversation) (Ochs & Capps 2001: 36–40; on the
→ performativity of oral narration as “situated communication,” see
Young 1987: chap. 4). In possible worlds narrative theory, on the other
hand, embedded narratives are a variety of alternate possible worlds
that exist as beliefs, intents, etc. in the form of retrospective interpreta­
tions of the past or projections about the future in relation to the actual
world, and thus contribute to the intelligibility of the fabula (Ryan
1986).
The possible worlds approach does in fact open the way to a logi-
cally consistent model of narrative embedding. Distinguishing between
discourse as an illocutionary category and story as an ontological cat­
egory, Ryan (1991: chap. 9) adopts a cross-classification of three di­
chotomies: +/- illocutionary; +/- ontological; +/- actual crossing. On
this basis, a system of four types of narrative boundaries, organized
into a “concentric structure,” is then elaborated: (1) no boundary, as a
given speaker describes a same level of reality; (2a) actually crossed il­
locutionary boundary, as when the first and second speakers are differ­
ent but refer to the same reality (e.g. dialogue quoted in direct speech);
(2b) virtually crossed illocutionary boundary (e.g. character’s narrative
presented by the narrator’s discourse in indirect speech); (3a) actually
crossed ontological boundary with no change of speaker (change in
300 Narrative Levels

levels of reality in Alice in Wonderland reported by the primary narra-

tor); (3b) virtually crossed ontological boundary by the same speaker
(dream anchored in reality but described from the outside); (4a) actu­
ally crossed ontological boundary with change of speaker (a story with­
in a story, as in the Arabian Nights); (4b) virtually crossed ontological
boundary with change of speaker (primary narrator projects an imagin­
ary story by a second-level narrator). One advantage of this model of
narrative levels (and by implication, Genette’s, though he is not re­
ferred to) is that it provides a solution to the difficulty for traditional
accounts of embedding and frame tale in marking off discourse bound­
aries from the boundaries separating different narrative contents. The
system of narrative boundaries or frames, which is classificatory and
static, is completed with the notion of “stacks,” a metaphor borrowed
from computer science (cf. Hofstadter 1980: 127–31) in order to ac­
count for the dynamic and sequential ordering of levels in texts. “In a
canonical narrative, the building and unbuilding of the stack follows a
rigid protocol which restricts the range of legal operations. This pro­
tocol requires that levels be kept distinct, that they be pushed or
popped on the top of the stack exclusively; that pushing and popping be
properly signaled; and that every boundary be crossed twice, once dur­
ing the building and once during the unbuilding. At the end of the text,
the only level left on the stack should be the ground level. This pro­
tocol is respected by all standard narrative texts, but not by all texts of
literary fiction. Far from being constrained by the conditions of nar­
rativity, the fictional text may subvert the mechanisms of the stack,
thus openly taking an antinarrative stance” (Ryan 1991: 187). The au­
thor goes on to discuss various “subversions” of the canonical narrative
(the endlessly expanding stack, strange loops, contamination of levels,
etc.; see also McHale 1987: chap. 8), suggesting in effect that the stack
metaphor operates through execution of a code rather than in accord­
ance with the enunciative principle according to which the narrative act
occurs in a spatiotemporal universe external to that of the narrative
events, and that non-canonical narratives are deviant in relation to
“standard” narratives. However, the logical consistency of Ryan’s
model notwithstanding, it might be wondered if is not precisely bound­
ary crossings, irregular as well as “legal” (→ event and eventfulness),
that contribute to a text’s → narrativity.
In contrast to Ryan’s modeling of boundary crossings, derived from
the story/discourse dichotomy, Schmid (2005: 72–99) considers narra-
tive levels, together with presence/non-presence of the narrator in the
diegesis, a basic element in the elaboration of a typology of narrators.
Rejecting traditional typologies, which generally combine first- and
 Narrative Levels 301

third-person narration with internal vs. external perspective, Schmid

adopts Genette’s criteria, although with a revision of his terminology.
First, diegesis designates the level of the narrated world, and exegesis
the level of the narrating. Second, the diegetic narrator belongs to both
levels, and the non-diegetic narrator only to the exegesis. The elimina­
tion of personal pronouns and the disappearance of the prefixes
homo-/auto- and hetero- serve to underscore a differentiation which is
current in German narrative theory and implicit in Genette’s system,
namely erzählendes Ich/erzähltes Ich, or “narrating I”/“narrated I” (cf.
sujet de l’énonciation/de l’énoncé; “subject of the enunciation”/“the
enunciated” in French linguistics). These emendations make possible a
terminologically and conceptually clarified typology of narrators:
primary non-diegetic (=extra- heterodiegetic); primary diegetic (=extra-
homodiegetic); secondary non-diegetic (=intra- heterodiegetic); sec­
ondary diegetic (=intra- homodiegetic); tertiary non-diegetic (=meta-
heterodiegetic); tertiary diegetic (=meta- homodiegetic) (Schmid 2005:
87; cf. Genette [1972] 1980: 248). It must be remembered, however,
that Genette’s terminology is additionally intended to account for the
narrating instance, i.e. the difference of level resulting from the fact
that the narrative act necessarily takes place in a spatiotemporal uni­
verse which is external to that of the events related.
From a poststructuralist perspective, the notion of narrative levels is
symptomatic of a “boxing of narrative,” “a structure of supervision,”
and “purity of composition.” According to Gibson (1996: 215): “It is
crucial to the Genettian concept of levels that there be no seepage or
osmosis across the threshold. The substance composing each stratum
must be unadulterated. There must be no hint of ambivalence or para­
dox in the definition of a given stratum, no irrational features that
might trouble its terms. Equally, there must be no anomalies in any of
the strata, nothing mixed or hybrid.” However, Gibson’s critique of
“narratological geometrics” (which can also be leveled against Ryan
and Schmid) remains silent on such limit cases as mise en abyme, meta­
lepsis, and pseudo-diegetic narrative, overlooking the fact that levels
exist by virtue of their thresholds and are perpetually exposed to trans­
gressive crossings, just as it fails to mention Genette’s study of “trans­
textual” relations (1982, 1987). Nor does the critique take into account
the potential descriptive utility, widely acknowledged by theoreticians
of differing orientations, of narrative levels, embedding, frames, stacks,
etc., despite the inevitably metaphorical nature of whatever terminol-
ogy is employed. In presenting his notion of “narrative laterality” (in­
spired from Serres, Deleuze, Derrida), Gibson himself makes ample
302 Narrative Levels

use of the very terminology and concepts he denounces in order to de­

scribe the “collapse of hierarchies” (cf. García Landa 1998: 304).

3.1.2 Embedding as a Communicational Function

To be sure, formalist/structuralist models of narrative levels, which set
out to reformulate the traditional notions of embedding and framing in
terms of a general theory of narrative, may not be so rigid and con­
straining as supposed. As the transgressive and subversive passages
between levels noted above make clear, the relations between levels
surpass those of subordination and hierarchy. Genette suggests as much
when, in redefining these relations, he adopts a functional perspective
([1983] 1988: 92–4; cf. 2 above), stating however that the province of
narratology is not that of “interpretation” (87) and thus stopping short
of taking full stock of this position. In fact, he implicitly shifts to a
speech act approach to narrative levels, but without putting it in those
terms: as shown by Shryock (1993: 6–8), the explanatory function (by
metadiegetic analepsis) and the predictive function (by metadiegetic
prolepsis) of the second-level narrative operate by virtue of their illocu­
tionary force, while the persuasive, distractive, and obstructive func­
tions can be qualified as such only by their perlocutionary effects, the
obstructive function in particular binding the two levels together solely
by an act of narration (a point disregarded by Rimmon-Kenan when she
renames the narrational relation between levels “actional”). In this
light, narrative levels are so many ways of appealing to active partici-
pation by the addressee, and not a mere “stratagem of presentation” or
“conventionality,” as concluded by Genette ([1983] 1988: 95): the way
is opened toward a functional approach to narrative levels in place of
the more monological information-based model of narrative communi-
cation generally adhered to by classical narratology (cf. Chatman 1978:
151) (→ mediacy and narrative mediation).
One consequence of formulating narrative levels in functional terms
is the reordering of the notion of levels itself. Following a critique of
Bal’s revisions of Genette, Nelles (1997: 127–43) introduces two dis­
tinctive types of embedding: “horizontal” embedding occurs when a
story is told by two or more narrators without a change of diegetic
level, and “vertical” embedding when there is a change of level and of
speaker and/or of narratee. These forms can be likened, respectively, to
Ryan’s type 2a, 2b and 4a, 4b boundary crossings. An additional case
is the alternate universes created in a character’s mind, as in a dream
(cf. Ryan’s type 3b), which Nelles explains not as a change of level but
of the spatiotemporal coordinates of the story, or what Young (1987:
24) calls “Taleworld” (“the realm of the events the story is about”) as
 Narrative Levels 303

opposed to the “Storyrealm” (the “region of narrative discourse within

the realm of conversation”). With reference to McHale’s (1987) epi­
stemological vs. ontological fictions, he renames horizontal and verti-
cal embedding “verbal” and “modal,” respectively. Nelles contends
that the function of embedded narrative is thematic (by contract or an-
alogy) and that the interpretive strategies implemented by embedding
can be analyzed on the basis of the hermeneutic, proairetic, and formal
codes, adapted from Barthes’ analysis of “Sarrasine.”
Another functional approach to narrative levels has been elaborated
by Coste. Rooted in a communicative theory of narrative, this approach
emphasizes the role of the narrator not as homo- vs. heterodiegetic, but
as the enunciator: “A narrator is the subject of enunciation of one or
more utterances that either contain a narrateme or are involved in the
production of a narrateme by the reader” (Coste 1989: 166; on the no­
tion of narrateme and the structure of narrative meaning, see chap. 2).
Essential here is the functional separation between subjects of enuncia-
tion and subjects of the enunciated, splitting the subject as narrating in­
stance between present storyteller and past (or future) character (cf.
Schmid above). Subjects of enunciation, always exterior to the enunci­
ated, are thus determined according to their relations with: (a) enunci­
ated utterances; (b) other subjects of enunciation; and (c) addressees,
intentional or not (167). On these premises, Coste sets forth two types
of narrative embedding: hypotactic, resulting from grammatical subor­
dination and materialized in the form of delegated narration; paratactic
(juxtaposition, coordination), forming a system of “parallel” narrators
at the same level and related to → dialogism in which narratives are
combined either by sequential relay, concurrent/conflictive versions, or
narrational crossfire (167–73). The same distinction is made by García
Landa (1998: 302), who has also drawn attention to the link between
paratactically embedded literary narratives and face-to-face communi-
cation. In this type of narration, addressee roles are more varied than
those typically found in written texts: as in conversational narratives,
paratactically organized stories and novels may not be restricted to in­
tended addressees (narratee, implied reader), but also fall on the ears of
mere auditors or even those of overhearers or eavesdroppers, including
narratologists (García Landa 2004; cf. Goffman 1981). To the extent
that both types are enunciative, they can be likened to Nelles’s hori­
zontal or verbal embedding and to Ryan’s illocutionary boundary
crossings and, respectively, to her types 2b and 2a. Where Coste’s sys­
tem differs from these models is in the notion of “overall narrator,” a
cooperative construct that acts as an organizer or control function
which may be textualized (editor in the 18th-century novel) or not
304 Narrative Levels

(→ implied author), although it must be mentioned that Ryan (2001),

in a different spirit and independently of her work on narrative bound­
aries, has argued in favor of breaking the narrator down into the cre­
ative (self-expressive), transmissive (performative), and testimonial
(assertive) narratorial functions constitutive of “narratorhood.” Of
central interest in Coste’s model are the interdependent, organic rela­
tions between the two types of embedding, captured by the image of
the “narrational tree”: while the roots grow deeper and the trunk higher
(hypotactic or vertical embedding), the branches spread out laterally
(paratactic or lateral embedding).

3.2 Frame Tale and mise en abyme

A significant and oft overlooked fact of the principle of narrative levels

is that it focuses on formal features of embedding and as such does not
—nor is it intended to—distinguish between the relative importance,
quantitative or otherwise, of primary and second-level narrative: the
process of embedding employed in the Arabian Nights is identical to
that of the interpolated narratives in Don Quixote. The deployment of
narrative levels and the modalities of transitions between them are ex­
tremely variable, both historically and generically (the Decameron, the
picaresque novel, the epistolary novel, postmodern fiction, etc.; for a
brief historical survey of frame tales, see Kanzog 1966; for embedding
in various genres, see Duyfhuizen 1992). As already discussed, there
exist several ways of organizing narrative levels including the weight
of thematic criteria relative to the degree of prominence of the narra-
tive act (Genette), the vectorization of illocutionary and ontological
boundaries (Ryan), the combination of narrating I / narrated I with
level in a typology of the narrator (Schmid), and the separation of
levels into horizontal and vertical embedding (Nelles, Coste). It is also
possible to examine the textual integration of narrative levels according
to the length of primary and second-level narratives relative to one an­
other, the two poles of which are the frame tale and mise en abyme.
The simplest definition of the frame tale—“one story encloses an­
other like a frame” (Kanzog [1966] 1977: 321)—is ambiguous because
it fails to distinguish between the framing and the framed, and it is also
misleading in that (a) picture frames (to which the metaphor alludes)
rarely form a part of the framed pictorial representation and (b)
“framed” narratives do not come forth unmediated but necessarily in­
teract with surrounding discourse. When examined from the perspec-
tive of narrative levels, frame tales must be qualified as a particular
type of intradiegetic narrative with regard to the narrative in which they
 Narrative Levels 305

are contained (cf. Ryan’s type 4a border crossing) and are thus, how­
ever brief they might be, subject to the criteria of narrativity in their
own right (cf. Wolf 2006: 181). In addition to change of voice and
level and to the potential for multiple levels of embedding, narratives
that employ the framing technique—and this accessorily to the prin­
ciple of narrative embedding properly speaking—can incorporate a
single second-level narrative (Heart of Darkness) or multiple second-
level narratives (the Arabian Nights) as well as, within a given second-
level narrative, additional embedded narratives (as in “The Three
Ladies of Baghdad”). A fourth feature of frame stories is their compo-
sitional distribution: a framing can be complete (appearing at the be­
ginning and end of the embedded story), incomplete (introductory only
or terminal only, possibly producing metaleptic effects), or interpolated
(appearing intermittently) (adapted from Wolf 2006: 185–88).
Overall, the frame tale, together with its second-level narrative, re­
lies heavily on compositional means. Most notably, it offers the possi-
bility of linking together an otherwise disparate group of stories and of
establishing thematic relations among them, and it thus contributes to
textual → coherence. Semiotically, this corresponds to the syntactic di­
mension of semiosis. Another feature of the frame tale, particularly in
its written form, is that it replicates the communicative situation of oral
storytelling, indicating a time and place of the narrative act and the
audience and buttressing the “narratorial illusionism” of the framed
tale (Kanzog [1966] 1977: 322; Nünning 2004: 17; Williams 1998;
110, 113; Wolf 2006: 188–89). The communicative specificities of the
framing technique thus come within the scope of pragmatics. And fi­
nally, the traditional function of the frame tale (carried over, inter alia,
to the elaborate prefatory material of the 18th-century novel) is to vali-
date the framed story (which itself may be improbable) with an air of
authenticity, thanks to the impartial report by the primary narrator. This
does not necessarily mean, however, that the primary narrator vouches
for the veracity of the related facts: a potentially rhetorical move (as in
the case of an unreliable narrator), authentification by the primary nar­
rator consists in principle in affirming that the second-level narrator re­
lated such-and-such, not in asserting what s/he related (cf. Duyfhuizen
1992: 134; Williams 1998: 114; Wolf 2006: 192). This aspect of the
framing technique can be assimilated to the semantic dimension of se­
miosis, although it also merges with pragmatic considerations.
The defining characteristic of mise en abyme is the relation of rep-
etition and reflection the second-level narrative entertains with the
quantitatively greater narrative within which it is contained. Iconic in
the semiotic sense (cf. Bal 1978) and producing disruptive but poten­
306 Narrative Levels

tially significant effects on the progression of the primary narrative, the

device exists in three basic forms (Dällenbach 1977): (a) mise en
abyme of the utterance (e.g. portions of the romance The Mad Trist that
parallel certain incidents in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”);
(b) mise en abyme of the enunciation, or highlighting of the process of
narrative communication (e.g. the exemplum, whose aim is to instill in
the reader a moral awareness); (c) mise en abyme of the code or text
(e.g. Abish’s Alphabetical Africa, where chapter 1 employs only words
beginning with letter “a,” chapter 2 only words beginning with the let­
ters “a” and “b,” etc. up to chapter 26, the second half of the novel re­
versing this order). These varieties of the device also come respectively
within the scope of semantics, pragmatics, and syntactics, although in
the case of mise en abyme, unlike in the framing technique, these di­
mensions are modeled iconically into the primary narrative.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

It is not by coincidence that Genette’s study of paratext—the “unde­

cided zone” between the interior and the exterior of the text occupied
by prefaces, epigraphs, notes, interviews, etc. which constitutes a space
of transaction between author and reader—is titled Seuils (thresholds),
the very term employed to describe the transitions between narrative
levels. One broad area of inquiry for additional study is the interaction
of narrative levels with speaker-hearer relations from a sociolinguistic
perspective, beginning with “frame analysis” (Goffman 1974, 1981;
Ochs & Capps 2001; Young 1987). Another need, within the scope of
→ cognitive narratology, is to gain further insight into the WHAT, WHERE,
and WHEN that can be provided by narrative levels in the construction of
storyworlds as focused on by research in text worlds (Werth 1999),
deictic shifts (Duchan et al. eds. 1995), and contextual frames (Emmott
1997).

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Bal, Mieke (1977). Narratologie (Essais sur la signification narrative dans quatre
romans modernes). Paris: Klincksieck.
– (1978). “Mise en abyme et iconicité.” Littérature 29, 116–28.
– (1981). “Notes on Narrative Embedding.” Poetics Today 2.2, 41–59.
– ([1985] 1997). Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: U of Toronto P.
Barth, John (1981). “Tales within Tales within Tales.” Antaeus 43, 45–63.
 Narrative Levels 307

Bremond, Claude (1973). Logique du récit. Paris: Seuil.

Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Coste, Didier (1989). Narrative as Communication. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
Dällenbach, Lucien ([1977] 1989). The Mirror in the Text. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
Duchan, Judith F., et al. eds. (1995). Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Per­
spective. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Duyfhuizen, Bernard (1992). Narratives of Transmission. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickin­
son UP.
Emmott, Catherine ([1997] 1999). Narrative Comprehension: A Discourse Perspective.
Oxford: Oxford UP.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
Füredy, Viveca (1989). “A Structural Model of Phenomena with Embedding in Litera-
ture and Other Arts.” Poetics Today 10, 745–69.
García Landa, José Ángel (1998). Acción, relato, discorso. Estructura de la ficción
narrativa. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad Salamanca.
– (2004) “Overhearing Narrative.” J. Pier (ed). The Dynamics of Narrative Form:
Studies in Anglo-American Narratology. Berlin: de Gruyter, 191–214.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
– ([1982] 1997). Palimpsests. Literature in the Second Degree. Lincoln: U of Neb­
raska P.
– ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
– ([1987] 1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Gibson, Andrew (1996). Towards a Postmodern Theory of Narrative. Edinburgh: Edin­
burgh UP.
Goffman, Erving (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay in the Organization of Experience.
New York: Harper & Row.
– (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P.
Hofstadter, Douglas (1980). Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. New
York: Vintage.
Kanzog, Klaus ([1966] 1977). “Rahmenerzählung.” W. Kohlschmidt & W. Moln (eds).
Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte. Berlin: de Gruyter, vol. 3, 321–43.
McHale, Brian (1987). Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge.
Nelles, William (1997). Frameworks: Narrative Levels and Embedded Narrative. New
York: Lang.
Nünning, Ansgar (2004). “On Metanarrative: Towards a Definition, a Typology and an
Outline of the Functions of Metanarrative Commentary.” J. Pier (ed). The Dynam­
ics of Narrative Form: Studies in Anglo-American Narratology. Berlin: de Gruyter,
11–57.
Ochs, Elinor & Lisa Capps (2001). Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Sto-
ries. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Pier, John ([1986] 2009 forthcoming). “Diegesis.” Th. A. Sebeok et al. (eds). Encyclo­
pedic Dictionary of Semiotics. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics.
London: Routledge.
308 Narrative Levels

Ryan, Marie-Laure (1986). “Embedded Narratives and Tellability.” Style 20, 319–40.
– (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory. Blooming­
ton: Indiana UP.
– (2001). “The Narratorial Functions: Breaking Down a Theoretical Primitive.” Nar­
rative 9, 146–52.
Schmid, Wolf (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Shryock, Richard (1993). Tales of Storytelling: Embedded Narration in Modern
French Fiction. New York: Lang.
Todorov, Tzvetan (1966). “Les catégories du récit littéraire.” Communications N° 8,
125–51.
– ([1971] 1977). The Poetics of Prose. Oxford: Blackwell.
Werth, Paul (1999). Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. Lon­
don: Longman.
Williams, Jeffrey (1998). Theory and the Novel: Narrative Reflexivity in the British
Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Wolf, Werner (2006). “Framing Borders in Frame Stories.” W. W. & W. Bernhart
(eds). Framing Borders in Literature and Media. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 179–206.
Young, Katharine Galloway (1987). Taleworlds and Storyrealms: The Phenomenology
of Narrative. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.

5.2 Further Reading

Meyer-Minnemann, Klaus & Sabine Schlickers (forthcoming). “La mise en abyme en
narratologie.” F. Berthelot & J. Pier (eds). Narratologies contemporaines. Villen­
euve d’Ascq: Septentrion.
Norrick, Neil (2000). Conversational Narrative. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Seager, Dennis L. (1991). Stories within Stories: An Ecosystemic Theory of Metadie­
getic Narration. New York: Lang.
 Narrativity
H. Porter Abbott

1 Definition

Though it has become a contested term, “narrativity” is still commonly

used in two senses: in a fixed sense as the “narrativeness” of narrative
and in a scalar sense as the “narrativeness” of a narrative, the one ap­
plied generally to the concept of narrative, the other applied compara-
tively to particular narratives. As such, it can be aligned with any num­
ber of modal pairings: e.g. the lyricism of the lyric/a lyric; the descrip-
tiveness of description/a description. Depending on the context, these
two uses of the term “narrativity” can serve their purposes effectively.
But increasingly over the last three decades, the term has filled a grow­
ing and sometimes conflicting diversity of conceptual roles. In the pro­
cess, other terms have, in varying ways, been drawn into the task of un­
derstanding narrativity, including “narrativeness” (used colloquially
above), “narrativehood,” “narratibility,” “tellability,” “eventfulness,”
“emplotment,” and “narrative” itself. To define narrativity fully, then,
requires a survey not only of its different conceptual uses, but also of
the supporting roles these other terms have been sometimes called on
to play.

2 Explication

This lively contestation has accompanied narrativity’s rise as a central

term, and in some cases the central term (Sternberg, Sturgess, Fluder-
nik, Audet), in postclassical narratology. This is in large part because
of the way the term has leant itself to a general shift away from the
formalist constraints of structuralist narratology (where the term is
rarely found) as attention has turned increasingly to the transaction
between narratives and the audiences that bring them to life. As such, it
has helped open up the study of narrative to an array of approaches—
phenomenological, discursive, cognitive, historical, cultural, evolution­
ary—that have transformed the field.
310 Narrativity

The term’s advantage in this postclassical renaissance is built into

its grammatical status as a reference to a property or properties rather
than to a thing or class. As what one might call an “adjectival” noun,
narrativity suggests connotatively a felt quality, something that may not
be entirely definable or may be subject to gradations. Ryan’s distinc­
tion between “being a narrative” and “possessing narrativity” (2005c:
347, 2006a: 10–1) brings out the difference: where a narrative is a “se­
miotic object,” narrativity consists in “being able to inspire a narrative
response” (2005c: 347). This flexibility and comparative freedom from
restrictive categorizing (must a narrative have more than one event?
[→ event and eventfulness] must narrative events be causally connect-
ed? [→ coherence] must they involve human or humanlike entities?
[→ character]) also gives the term a certain user-friendliness. To adapt
Ryan’s language, if we ask: “Does Finnegans Wake have more or less
narrativity than Little Red Riding Hood?” we will get much broader
agreement than if we ask “Is Finnegans Wake a narrative?” (Ryan
2007: 30). In short, if narrative itself is a “fuzzy concept” (Ryan 2006b,
2007; Jannidis 2003), narrativity is a term more closely attuned to its
fuzziness (Herman 2002). This practical advantage of the term has also
abetted the development of a transgeneric and transmedial narratology
(Wolf 2002; Ryan 2005c, 2006a) [→ narration in poetry and drama;
→ narration in various media] that includes narrative in genres and me­
dia where words are no longer central to narration and where readers
become viewers and even active participants. It has even facilitated
consideration of narrativity in media that lack expectations of eventful­
ness (lyric poetry), sequentiality (painting), or even hetero-referential­
ity (referring to events outside the medial domain) that are the staple of
narrative. Most controversial among the latter has been instrumental
music, considered by many a purely self-referential artistic medium.
Among those sketching a possible “narratology of music” (Kramer
1991; Newcomb 1987; McClary 1997; Wolf 2002, 2004; Grabócz
forthcoming), it has been Wolf who has explicitly capitalized on the
finer calipers of the term “narrativity” to capture narrative effects
achievable in a medium that cannot tell a story.
Not surprisingly, then, narrativity has been more often used as a
variable quality than as a necessary component or set of components by
which narrative can be defined. Thus Herman adopts the term “narra-
tivehood” in the sense given it by Prince (1999) as a “binary predicate”
by which “something either is or is not” deemed a story, and in this
way reserves “narrativity” as a “scalar predicate” by which something
is deemed “more or less prototypically storylike” (Herman 2002: 90–
1). As Herman suggests, this distinction correlates with the distinction
 Narrativity 311

between “extensional” and “intensional” aspects of narrative which

were introduced to narratology through the application of “possible
worlds” theory by Doležel (1979, 1983, 1998), Pavel (1986), Ryan
(1991), and others. Nevertheless, narrativity has not been used exclu-
sively in an intensional sense. In his most recent reconsideration of this
knotty terminological problem, Prince (2008) has sought to expand the
concept of narrativity to include both extensional and intensional as­
pects. For the first—the entities that constitute narrative—he has re­
tained the term narrativehood; for the second—the qualities or traits of
narrative—he has applied the term narrativeness. In Prince’s view, both
are scalar concepts in that they are subject to degrees, the first quanti-
tative, the second qualitative (see also Hühn 2008: 143).
Further complicating any effort to organize the range of discourse
on narrativity are the ways in which the term has been deployed in
modal or generic distinctions to delineate both a field of specifically
narrative modes and a broader field in which narrative is one of a num­
ber of communicative and artistic modes. In both, its flexibility as a
scalar phenomenon plays a role. At the broadest level of abstraction,
then, the discussion of narrativity can be organized under four head­
ings: (a) as inherent or extensional; (b) as scalar or intensional; (c) as
variable according to narrative type; (d) as a mode among modes.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 Prehistory of Narrativity

As noted above, the term “narrativity” did not develop its lively range
of conceptual roles until the emergence of a postclassical narratology
in the last decades of the 20th century. The most influential precursor
concept is the property of mediation, which Plato identified when dis­
tinguishing between the indirect representational character of diegesis
and the direct presentational character of mimesis: the one narrated by
the poet, the other performed (The Republic, Bk 3). As Schmid (2003:
17–8) notes, mediation was a central focus of classical narratology well
before narratology got its name, notably in Stanzel’s major work of the
1950s and 1960s, later reinvigorated in A Theory of Narrative ([1979]
1984), but lacking the word “narrativity.” Another classical precursor
concept is Aristotle’s idea of muthos, “the configuration of incidence in
the story” (Greimas & Ricœur 1989: 551), which anticipates the
concept of “emplotment,” a central term for Ricœur and others in the
discourse on narrativity. In the development of classical narratology,
the Russian formalist idea of “the dominant” has also been critical.
312 Narrativity

Usually attributed to Tynjanov (1927) and influentially developed by

Jakobson, the dominant is the “focusing component of a work of art: it
rules, determines, and transforms the remaining components” and as
such guarantees “the integrity of the structure” (Jakobson [1935] 1971:
105). The dominant has been taken up by Sternberg and others as a cat-
egorical determinant, a perceived modal predominance, distinguishing
any particular narrative from other modal kinds (see 3.5 below).

3.2 Narrativity as Inherent or Extensional

Though narrativity has leant itself predominantly to usage that is inten­

sional, subjective, and variable according to context, audience, and oth­
er factors, there have been several powerful conceptions of the term as
inherent, determinative, and co-extensive with any particular narrative.

3.2.1 Immanence
Greimas is the major exception to the general structuralist neglect of
narrativity. His conception of the term is also notable for its breadth of
application, referring to a structuring force that generates not simply all
narratives but all discourse: “le principe organisateur de tout discours”
(Greimas & Courtés 1979: 249). With regard to narrative in particular,
Greimas distinguishes between an apparent and an immanent level of
narration, with narrativity located in the latter. As such, “narrativity is
situated and organized prior to its manifestation. A common semiotic
level is thus distinct from the linguistic level and is logically prior to it,
whatever the language chosen for the manifestation” (Greimas [1969]
1977: 23).
It is also important to note that, for Greimas, narrativity is a disor­
ganizing as well as an organizing force in that it disrupts old orders
even as it generates new ones. It is “the irruption of the discontinuous”
into the settled discourse “of a life, a story, an individual, a culture,”
disarticulating the existing discourse “into discrete states between
which it sets transformations” ([1983] 1987: 104). To bear this in mind
is to see the deep commonality of modes (descriptive, argumentative,
narrative) often left segmented in analytical terminology. In an analysis
of Maupassant’s “A Piece of String,” Greimas carefully demonstrates
how customary distinctions such as that between descriptive and nar­
rative segments give way at a deeper level that organizes “according to
canonical rules of narrativity” ([1973] 1989: 625). However static they
may appear to be, descriptive segments are imbued with the same un­
dergirding narrativity that organizes the segments of action.
 Narrativity 313

3.2.2 Emplotment
For Ricœur, a key manifestation of narrativity is “emplotment,” the ar­
ticulation of which involves “broadening, radicalizing, [and] enriching”
the Aristotelean idea of plot with the Augustinian understanding of
time ([1985] 1988: 4). This allows him on the one hand to develop a
complex reassessment of the temporal difference between fictional and
historical narrative, while on the other to bring out their deep common­
alty. To accomplish this, Ricœur, like Greimas, posits a deep level of
narrativity; but unlike Greimas, he sees it as a “pre-understanding” of
our historical mindedness—“an intelligibility of the historicality that
characterizes us” (Greimas & Ricœur 1989: 552)—and it lies at the
heart of his critique of Greimas’s a-temporal model of fictional narra-
tive (Ricœur 1980). In addition, and further differentiating his usage
from that of Greimas, Ricœur saw the operation of emplotment as a
dialectical process, a dynamic interaction between this “first-order in­
telligence” and the surface level where narrative is structurally mani­
fest in the text (Greimas & Ricœur 1989: 551–52). Emplotment, then,
is an evolving, processual feed-back loop between the informing level
of narrativity and the particularity of its manifestation.
Like Ricœur, White (1973, 1978, 1981) does not limit narrativity to
the designated modes of fiction. But where Ricœur’s theory of emplot­
ment not only bonds but distinguishes fictional and nonfictional nar­
rativity (→ fictional vs. factual narration), White has tended over the
course of his writings to stress the commonality of their narrativity.
More than this, narrativity is for White a “panglobal fact of culture,”
without which there is no conveying knowledge as meaning. Narrati-
vity is at one with the perception of meaning because meaning only
emerges when events have been “emplotted” with “the formal coher­
ency that only stories can possess” (White 1981: 19). For this reason,
history, by definition, cannot exist without narrativity. In its absence,
there is a mere succession of events (annals) or, at best, events organ­
ized by some other means than plot (chronicles). It is emplotment that
brings events to life, endowing them with cultural meaning, since
“[t]he significance of narrative is not latent in the data of experience, or
of imagination, but fabricated in the process of subjecting that data to
the elemental rhetoric of the narrative form itself” (Walsh 2003: 111).
The final irony, then, is that narrativity is the unacknowledged neces­
sity of what we take for truth, for to attain the status of truth, a repre-
sentation of “the real” requires, at a minimum, “the character of nar­
rativity” (White 1981: 6).
314 Narrativity

3.2.3 A Logic of Narrativity

For Sturgess, too, narrativity is inherent in narrative. It is an “enabling
force” that “is present at every point in the narrative” (Sturgess 1992:
28). He also echoes Greimas when he writes of narrativity’s power
over “nonnarrative” segments like descriptive passages. It governs “not
only the chronology of a novel’s story, but equally every interruption
of that chronology, and every variation in the mode of representation
of that story” (22). At the same time, he situates himself in opposition
to Greimas’s idea of “a deep structural level of narrative which is pre­
sumed in some way to account for the existence of the narrative in
question” (14). Drawing on Bremond’s (1973) critique of Greimas,
Sturgess sees narrativity instead as an all-determining “logic” or “pow-
er of narrativity which decides” how elements are deployed at any mo­
ment in a narrative (Sturgess 1992: 140–41).
Cohen also proposes a logic of narrativity, but one that simply re­
quires that the languages of literary and filmic fiction render their signs
consecutively. The result, however, is also a co-extensively inherent
narrativity that the reader or viewer is led to apprehend: “an unfolding
structure, the diegetic whole, that is never fully present in any one
group yet always implied in each group” (1979: 92). Like Sturgess, and
unlike Ricœur and White, Cohen restricts narrativity to works of con­
scious art. But Sturgess’s concept differs from all three in two funda­
mental ways. First, for Sturgess, the “logic of narrativity” requires no
sequential structuring principle, but simply the ability to arouse “a
sense of its own wholeness” as narrative (1992: 28). Second, narrati-
vity only crystallizes when the reader is persuaded that what is being
read is a narrative. It is in this sense a reflexive concept.
An advantage of both Sturgess’s and Cohen’s logics is the way they
can accommodate postmodern and other extreme forms of weakened or
obscured storyline that are often considered “anti-narrative,” since
“every narrative will possess its own form of narrativity” (Sturgess:
ibid.). In Cohen’s words, even “the randomness common to […] sur­
realist experiments points to the fundamental and seemingly inevitable
narrativity of cinematic and literary language” (1979: 92). A disadvant­
age of this approach to narrativity is the threat of circularity, which
weakens both its analytical leverage and its ability to distinguish nar­
rative competence from narrative incompetence.

3.3 As Scalar or Intensional

Some scholars start out with an extensional definition of narrativity,

equating it with a “set” of defining conditions, as in “the set of quali-
 Narrativity 315

ties marking narrative and helping a reader or viewer perceive the dif­
ference between narrative and non-narrative texts” (Keen 2003: 121) or
“the set of properties characterizing narrative and distinguishing it
from nonnarrative” (Prince [1987] 2003: 65). But these same scholars
will often go on to treat the concept of narrativity as an intensional
quality by which a text is felt to be “more or less narrative” (ibid.). In­
deed, as Schmid (2003: 30) notes, it is hard to remain objective or to do
away with an interpretive stance when discussing the scalar narrativity
of texts. This double usage of narrativity is the problem Prince (2008)
set out to resolve when he divided narrativity into narrativehood and
narrativeness. As he demonstrates, the scalar nature of narrativity is not
only complicated by the variable combinability of these two subcat­
egories but by other factors as well. With similar ambition, Ryan has
spelled out a “tentative formulation of [nine] nested conditions” that
might be used in describing narrative as a “fuzzy set,” recognizable in
any particular work according to the number and importance of the
conditions present (Ryan 2006b: 194). Many scholars have, nonethe­
less, centered their theorizing on a single manifestation of narrativity,
while explicitly or implicitly acknowledging the complexity of narra-
tive response that makes narrativity both a scalar and a fuzzy concept.
This in turn means that there can be no pure segregation of their work
under one caption or another.

3.3.1 Sequentiality
In the 1970s, when Sternberg developed his theory of three overarching
“master forces” of narrative—curiosity, suspense, and surprise (1978)
—he did not use the word “narrativity.” In more recent years, however,
the term “narrativity” has become increasingly important for him as
“the play of suspense/curiosity/surprise between represented and com­
municative time,” while a narrative is a text in which “such play dom­
inates.” Narrativity, then, is a scalar property which can be “stronger”
or “weaker.” But when it is dominant in any text, its “functional” char­
acter is to act as a “regulating principle” (1992: 529). At this point, the
theory transits to a concept of inherency. Thus “strong narrativity […]
not merely represents an action but interanimates the three generic
forces that play between narrated and narrational time” (2001: 119).
All the elements are orchestrated according to “the unbreakable law­
likeness of the narrative process itself” (2003: 328), so that, for ex­
ample, whatever your sympathies regarding the characters in a story,
they “must arise from the generic trio, and impinge on everything else
in the reading, given the exigencies of intersequence” (ibid.).
316 Narrativity

Almost all arguments identifying narrativity with sequentiality start

from the idea that there is more to it than simply one thing after the
other. In this they follow antecedent theorizing ranging from Aristotle’s
view of the well-made tragedy to Tomaševskij’s (1925) definition of
fabula and Forster’s (1927) definition of plot, all of which stress the
importance of causal connection. Since then, much theorizing about
narrative has featured a sense of causal agency as “a necessary condi­
tion of narrativity” (Richardson 1997: 106; White 1981; Bal 1985;
Bordwell 1985; Rabinowitz 1987; Kafalenos 2006). Pier (2008) more
rigorously distinguishes between treatments of causality suitable in de­
fining narrative and “narrative worlds” and a more adequate under­
standing of narrativity in relation to the complex, evolving, process of
causal inference “set in motion by heuristic reading and semiotic read­
ing” (134).
More recently, understanding of sequentiality has been enlarged by
the importation of schema theory from cognitive psychology (Bordwell
1985; Fludernik 1996; Herman 2002; Hühn 2008; → schemata). Espe­
cially important has been the concept of cognitive scripts in analyzing
what happens at the script/story interface (Herman 2002). Scripts are
stereotypical sequences warehoused in the brain that together contrib­
ute to Bruner’s (1991) “canonicity” or the expectations on which Stern­
berg’s sequence of curiosity/suspense/surprise depends. They partici-
pate in varying degrees of narrativity, depending on the extent to which
they are breached with the unexpected. (For further commentary on
narrativity and schema theory, see 3.2.4 below.)
Ryan complicated the sequential unfolding of scalar narrativity
when she located it in the varying ratio of two levels: “one pertaining
to story (or the ‘what’ of a narrative) and the other to the discourse (or
the ‘way’ such narrative content is presented).” For example, “[t]he
same text can present full narrativity in sense 1, but low narrativity in
sense 2, when it tells a well-formed story but the progress of the action
is slowed down by descriptions, general comments, and digressions”
(2007: 34 n.25). Kermode (1983) takes this bi-level approach a step
further. In narratives of any complexity, he argues, the sequentiality of
the story’s narrativity is always at war with the nonnarrativity of the
discourse. Narrativity on this view is a kind of psycho-cultural “propri­
ety” that lies in the comforting “connexity” of the fabula, accepted
simply as such. In this way, Kermode’s account of the reassurance of
story chimes with White’s idea of narrativity as a conduit of ideologi-
cal doxa. But for Kermode, what disturbs the orthodoxy freighted in
the narrativity of the fabula is the sujet or the rendering of the story. It
is the sujet that prevents us, if we are intent on not “underreading,”
 Narrativity 317

from resting in the story’s reassuring sequential narrativity, for it

abounds in “mutinous” nonnarrative elements that contend with the
text’s narrativity, crying out to be accommodated by interpretation
even as they frustrate it (137).

3.3.2 Eventfulness
Recent attention to eventfulness by the Hamburg Narratology Research
Group responds to the need for a clearer understanding of what consti­
tutes a narrative event than is found in most sequentiality-based theo-
ries (Hühn 2008: 146). Schmid (2003) develops his theory of eventful­
ness within a definition of the narrative event as a non-trivial change of
state that takes place and reaches completion (is “resultative”) in the
actual (“real”) world of any particular fictional narrative. Its narrati-
vity, then, depends on its non-triviality, which in turn is a factor of its
eventfulness. For Schmid this depends on five key variable features:
relevance, unpredictability, persistence, irreversibility, and non-iter­
ativity. Hühn (2008) supplements Schmid’s concept by drawing on
schema theory and Lotman’s concept of the “semantic field.” Combin­
ing these two areas of research gives Hühn’s version of eventfulness an
analytical scope that includes both the cognitive drama of schematic
disruption and an awareness of historical and cultural contexts afforded
by the recognition of differing semantic socio-cultural fields.
Audet has sought to disconnect the concept of narrativity from any
dependent connection with crafted narrative, identifying it instead with
the more widely occurring sense of what he calls “eventness [événe­
mentialité], […] where the tension between a before and an after seems
to generate a virtuality, that of a story to come” ([2006] 2007: 34).
Audet builds on Lotman’s idea of a hierarchy of events, proposing
three levels or types of event: the “inworld event” (concrete action), the
“discursive event,” and the “operal event” (“connected to the perform­
ing of the work itself”) (33), each of which in its emergence raises nar­
rativity through its aura of events to come. However far one wishes to
go down this road with Audet, he, like Cohen, Sturgess, and as we will
see Fludernik, has found a way to accommodate those postmodern ex­
perimental texts that often frustrate narratologists wedded to a narra-
tive-centered theory.

3.3.3 Tellability
Originally introduced by Labov (1972), → tellability (or narratibility;
cf. Prince 2008) is what makes a story worth telling. It allows a posi-
tive answer to the question “What’s the point?” and has often been
“hard to disentangle” from narrativity (Ryan 2005b: 589). Specifically,
318 Narrativity

tellability is the variable potential of a story as yet unnarrativized,

while narrativity is the variable success of its narrativizing. In Her­
man’s precise wording: “Situations and events can be more or less
tellable; the ways in which they are told can […] display different de­
grees of narrativity. Thus, whereas both predicates are scalar, tellability
attaches to configurations of facts and narrativity to sequences repre-
senting those configurations of facts” (2002: 100). Nonetheless, the
border between the two concepts has often been blurred. In scalar con­
ceptions of narrativity, tellability often ranks high on the list of quali-
ties that participate in a text’s narrativity. Bruner (1991) asserts that
without tellability there can be no narrativity. Tellability is also essen­
tial to Fludernik’s experience-based concept of narrativity. Conceived
as the narrator’s emerging sense of the importance (“point”) of the
events narrated, tellability, for Fludernik, is the third of three narration­
al operations—reviewing past events, reproducing them, and evaluat­
ing them—that, when conjoined, “constitute narrativity” (2003: 245).
For Hühn (2008), eventfulness is the prior concept on which tellability
depends. In passing, he makes the useful distinction between narratives
with sufficient eventfulness to be tellable and what he terms “process
narratives,” found in the sciences, historiography, lawsuits, and even in
recipes and instruction manuals, which are “a more descriptive and
neutrally informative way of tracing and communicating developments,
processes, and changes” (145 n.30). Elaborating further, Hühn argues
that tellability is absent from the narrativity of the uneventful, plotless
narration of type I events, but is the key distinction of the eventful, em­
plotted narration of type II events (see “Event and Eventfulness”).

3.3.4 Narrative Competence and Experientiality

The increasing concern for reader/audience response in postclassical
narratology has led to a focus on narrative competence, which has in­
volved varying degrees of a “constructivist” orientation to narrativity
like the one Scholes (1982) developed in reaction to the widespread
use of the term in film theory as “a property of films themselves.” In
English, Scholes argued, the word narrativity “implies a more sentient
character than we generally allow an artifact. For this reason and some
others,” Scholes employs the word “to refer to the process by which a
perceiver actively constructs a story from the fictional data provided by
any narrative medium. A fiction is presented to us in the form of a nar­
ration (a narrative text) that guides us as our own narrativity seeks to
complete the process that will achieve a story” (60).
Echoing Iser (1972) and Sternberg (1978), Scholes’s concept of nar­
rativity engages in fictional world-making by filling in gaps, both
 Narrativity 319

“passive or automatic” and “active or interpretive,” guided always by

the semiotics of fictional and filmic language (Scholes 1982: 61). Once
aroused, the “primary effort” of our narrativity is “to construct a satis­
fying order of events.” This it does by exercising the power of our nar­
rativity in concert with the “narrational blueprints” (69) of the art to
construct “two features: temporality and causality” (ibid.). Anticipating
McHale’s (2001) view of weak narrativity, Scholes argued that this ex­
ercise of our gift of narrativity is essential even in those postmodern
and experimental novels and films that seek to disrupt it, since without
this cognitive and semiotic equipment the effects of their disruption
would go unexperienced (64).
Leitch also adopted a constructivist narrativity, but with an account
of the capabilities required that is interestingly different from Scholes’:
“At its simplest level, narrativity entails three skills: the ability to defer
one’s desire for gratification; […] the ability to supply connections
among the material a story presents; and the ability to perceive discur-
sive events as significantly related to the point of a given story or se­
quence” (Leitch 1986: 34). For Leitch (similarly to Scholes), it is up to
any particular narrative “to cultivate an appropriate degree of narrati-
vity, which may vary widely from one story to the next” (35). How­
ever, both stop short of a more extreme constructivism by contending
that narrativity leaves off when we are no longer “under the illusionary
guidance of a maker of narratives” (Scholes 1982: 64). This would
leave out of account the power of narrativity to read a narrative where
none is intended—to project, for example, from natural events the
signs of a maker intent on communicating a prophetic story. “Life re­
sumes,” Scholes writes, “when narrativity ceases” (ibid.).
Nelles goes further in the direction of readerly control when he
defines narrativity as “the product of a tropological operation by which
the metaphor of narration is applied to a series of words on a page. To
read a text by means of the trope of narration is to read out of it a nar­
rator and its voice, and a narratee and its ear” (Nelles 1997: 116). Nar­
rativity is at work, in other words, when a reader frames, or reframes, a
text as narrative, an operation that can be applied even to texts com­
monly designated as something else (a lyric poem, an argument, a piece
of music). Once such a text is imbued with narrativity, “the tools of
narrative analysis can be applied” (120). From here it is a short step to
narrativity as a universal feature of creative perception, that power that
White theorizes as at once seeing and making history where there is
none—the power to narrativize the real.
The infusion of cognitive research has invigorated research on nar­
rative competence. Notable in this regard is the work of Fludernik, for
320 Narrativity

whom narrativity is quite explicitly “not a quality inhering in a text, but

rather an attribute imposed on the text by the reader who interprets the
text as narrative, thus narrativizing the text” (2003: 244). Fludernik de­
rives the essential quality of narrativity from what she calls “human ex­
perientiality,” building on pre-cognitive work by Hamburger (1957)
and Cohn (1978) that had keyed narrative to its unique capability of
portraying consciousness. Fludernik enlarges this focus with insight
gained from Labovian discourse analysis and schema theory, expand­
ing it to encompass a great range of expressive acts, starting with the
conversation of everyday life (→ conversational narration/oral narra­
tion). Thus when readers encounter texts formally described as narra-
tives, they draw on an immense accumulation of frames and scripts that
arise from the experience of life itself.
In this way, Fludernik displaces the centrality traditionally con­
ferred on the formal properties of “story,” “plot,” and “narrator” in
definitions of narrative, while (like Cohen, Sturgess, and Audet in their
different ways) expanding the range of full narrative legitimacy to ex­
perimental fiction in which these properties are barely perceptible. At
the same time, by locating narrativity as a “natural” process not de­
pendent on the experience of literature, Fludernik broadens what Culler
(1975: 134–60) called “naturalization”—the process by which a reader
gains or seeks to gain cognitive control over texts. She also narrows
this process to a specifically narrative operation, replacing Culler’s
term “naturalization” with “narrativization,” by which the reader draws
on a compendium of experiential, not strictly literary, schemata mar­
shaled under the “macro-frame” of narrativity. It is this that allows a
“re-cognization of a text as narrative” (Fludernik 1996: 313). Only to
the degree that a text resists narrativization does it discourage percep­
tions of narrativity. Yet even such “unnatural” cases, if repeated often
enough, can become part of a reader’s natural experience and thus sus­
ceptible to narrativization.
Herman, in his turn, builds on the “natural narratology” of Fluder-
nik, Labov, and others, drawing, as they did, on cognitive theory and
discourse analysis. For Herman, too, narrativity can be found in the lar­
ger terrain of human experience, and indeed much of his work inter­
mixes a focus on narrativity as it occurs in conversation, ranging across
a spectrum from the banal to the unfathomable. To put this in his
words: “Narrativity is a function of the more or less richly patterned
distribution of script-activating cues in a sequence. Both too many and
too few script-activating cues diminish narrativity” (Herman 2002: 91).
But Herman also critiques Fludernik’s reliance on “experientiality” as
the determinate factor in gauging a text’s degree of narrativity. To do
 Narrativity 321

so, he argues, places “too much weight on a participant role whose de­
gree of salience derives from a larger, preference-based system of
roles” (2002: 169, 2009: passim).
Phelan (2005, 2007), from his quite differently oriented “rhetorical
understanding of narrativity,” also advocates maintaining a focus on
both sides of the reader/text transaction. For him, narrativity is a com­
plex, “double-layered phenomenon” involving both a progression of
events and a progression of reader response. Each is characterized by a
“dynamics of instability,” the one driving the tale, the other driving the
response to it (Phelan 2007: 7). The tension of characters acting and re­
acting in an unstable situation is accompanied by a “tension in the
telling—unstable relations among authors, narrators, and audiences,”
and it is the complex interaction of the two kinds of instability that
constitutes narrativity and that “encourages two main activities: ob­
serving and judging” (ibid.). Put differently, narrativity involves “the
interaction of two kinds of change: that experienced by the characters
and that experienced by the audience in its developing responses to the
characters’ changes” (Phelan 2005: 323). As a scalar concept, “[v]ery
strong narrativity depends on the work’s commitment to both sets of
variables (textual and readerly). Weak narrativity arises from the
work’s lack of interest in one or both sets of variables” (Phelan 2007:
215; see also Ryan 2007; Prince 2008).

3.3.5 Fictionality
Keen draws attention to a “slippage” whereby fictionality has been in­
cluded as an index of narrativity (2003: 121). This controversial associ­
ation of narrativity and fictionality can be traced back to Hamburger
(1957). However, as noted above, White (1973, 1978, 1981), has en­
couraged not just a slippage but a conflation of narrativity, fictionality,
and history. Historical narratives are “verbal fictions the contents of
which are as much invented as found and the forms of which have
more in common with their counterparts in literature than they have
with those in science” (1978: 82). Consciously or not, White ironizes a
distinction that Woolf expressed when she wrote, “Let it be fact, one
feels, or let it be fiction. The imagination will not serve under two mas­
ters simultaneously” (Woolf [1927] 1994: 473; see also Ryan 1991;
Doležel 1998: 1–28; Cohn 1999: chap. 7). Seeking to moderate both
White’s extreme view that “[a]ll narrativity […] shares in the proper­
ties of fictionality” and the counter-argument for an absolute cat­
egorical distinction between fiction and nonfiction, Walsh points out
that “[r]eference actually occurs” in fiction, “and the use of language in
fiction is shown to be continuous with its use elsewhere” (2003: 111).
322 Narrativity

Readers, he contends, are always concerned to bring fictional worlds

“into relation with the larger context of their own experience and un­
derstanding” (114).

3.4 As Variable according to Narrative Type, Genre, or Mode

Herman writes that “narrative genres are distinguished by different

preference-rule systems prescribing different ratios of stereotypic to
nonstereotypic actions and events” (2002: 91). Variant narrativities, in
other words, accompany generic variations among the totality of narra-
tive genres. In her influential essay, “The Modes of Narrativity,” Ryan
(1992) developed a narrativity-based taxonomy of narrative text types
that included “simple narrativity” (dealing with a single conflict as in
fairy tales and anecdotes), “complex narrativity” (having interconnect-
ed narrative threads as in the triple-decker 19 th-century novel), “figural
narrativity” (abstract universals, concepts, or collectivities freighted on
characters and events as in certain lyrical and philosophical works),
“instrumental narrativity” (illustrative support in sermons and treati-
ses), and “proliferating narrativity” (having no overarching narrative
but a series of little narratives involving the same cast of characters as
in picaresque and magical realist novels). Ryan (1992, 2004, 2005c)
also invokes the necessity of a modal view of narrativity if we are fully
to grasp the narrative potential of non-verbal media: “It is only by re­
cognizing other modes of narrativity […]—modes such as illustrating,
retelling, evoking, and interpreting—that we can acknowledge the nar­
rative power of media without a language track” (2005a: 292).
Hühn (in this volume) distinguishes between “broad” and “narrow”
definitions of narrativity according to whether one is operating with a
minimal definition of narrative with its minimal concept of event (type
I) or a more restricted definition of narrative, requiring an event or
events that fulfill certain conditions (type II). Hühn’s distinction yields
a fixed concept of narrativity for “plotless” or “process” narration built
from type I events, but yields a scalar concept of narrativity for “plot­
ted” narration in which type II events play an integral role. Fludernik,
resisting the efforts of some to extend full narrativity to historical writ­
ing, categorizes it instead as “restricted narrativity, narrative that has
not quite come into its own” (1996: 26). Finally, where Ryan (1992)
uses the term “anti-narrativity,” McHale settles on the term “weak nar­
rativity” to describe the way in which Hejinian, Ashbery, and other av­
ant-garde narrative poets interpolate, break up, or suspend narrative
lines in their work. In such works, narrativity is not abolished; rather,
“we intuit that we are in the presence of narrativity. But at the same
 Narrativity 323

time that our sense of narrative is being solicited, it is also being frus­
trated” (McHale 2001: 164).

3.5 As a Mode among Modes

Chatman’s widely referenced distinction between narrative “text-

types” and “non-narrative text-types” (argument, exposition, descrip­
tion) draws on the idea of a type-determinative “overriding” presence
of one property or another (1990: 21). Though he does not use the term
“narrativity,” in essence he is echoing the Russian formalist concept of
the “dominant” that Sternberg deploys when he writes of the way a pre­
dominating narrativity draws technically non-narrative elements into a
narrative whole.
Phelan sets narrativity in contrast to two other modes: lyricality, in
which the dominant is “an emotion, a perception, an attitude, a belief”
or some form of meditation; and portraiture, in which the dominant is
the revelation of character. All three can to some extent be present in a
text of any length, but a text is hybridized when two or more are
present in strength, with one or the other dominating (Phelan 2007: 22–
4). What is meant by “hybrid” and by the terms, “dominate” and “dom­
inant” is itself a question on which there is room for debate. Sternberg,
for example, argues for the importance of “properly [naming] the text
after its dominant” since, once narrativity dominates, it draws the non­
narrative elements under its control in a way that is absolute. This in­
cludes “language, existents, thematics, point of view, etc.” as well as
descriptive phrases and “equivalence patterns.” Under sufficient narra-
tive pressure, “the descriptive turns kinetic” (Sternberg 2001: 119–20).
This would appear, however, to exclude the possibility of hybrids for,
given the dominant, “everything assimilates and conduces to its nar­
rativity, as inversely with narrative elements in descriptive writing”
(121). For Schmid (2003: 21–2), the situation can be more fluid, such
that there are hybrid texts in which the functionality of descriptive and
narrative elements can vie for dominance. A key element in reading
such texts, then, is how the reader chooses to interpret them.
In sum, the growing attention to the term “narrativity” has kept pace
with the increasing range and richness of narratological debate. Whe-
ther or not this term will eventually displace the centrality of the term
“narrative,” what Prince wrote a decade ago still holds true: “further
study of narrativity constitutes perhaps the most significant task of nar­
ratology today” (1999: 43).
324 Narrativity

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) The widely endorsed idea promoted by Bruner, Sacks, and others
that “each of us constructs and lives a narrative” (Sacks 1985: 105) has
been attacked by Strawson (2004) as a fallacy that does not match the
“gappy” discontinuity of consciousness and selfhood. But the issue is
more complex than either position (Battersby 2006), and narrativity
may play a key role in resolving it. (b) Related to this is the need for
more work on narrativity as a part of what Brooks calls “our cognitive
toolkit” (2005: 415; Herman 2002, 2009). (c) The narrativity of dreams
is a limit case on which much depends in the definition of narrativity.
On the one hand, there is flat rejection (Prince 2000: 16); on the other,
support (Metz 1974; Walsh forthcoming). (d) Work is needed on nar­
rativity in digital media, especially in narrativized games (Ryan 2006a)
and what Aarseth (1997) calls ergodic literature in which the “story” is
created in real time insofar as the events are determined by “non-trivi­
al” actions of the players. (e) A highly consequential and disputed area
for research is the role narrativity plays in law, its ethics and its prac­
tice (Brooks & Gewirtz 1996; Brooks 2005; Abbott [2002] 2008: 175–
92; Sternberg 2008). (f) Narrativity may well turn out to be a key
concept in building a critical and theoretical understanding of “narra-
tive-impaired” art that has recently been gathered under the heading of
“unnatural narratology.”

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Aarseth, Espen (1997). Cybertext: Perspectives of Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins UP.
Abbott, H. Porter ([2002] 2008). The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cam­
bridge: Cambridge UP.
Audet, René ([2006] 2007). “Narrativity: Away from Story, Close to Eventness.”
A. R. et al. (eds). Narrativity: How Visual Arts, Cinema and Literature are Telling
the World Today. Paris: Dis Voir, 7–35.
Bal, Mieke ([1985] 1997). Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative.
Toronto: U of Toronto P.
Battersby, James I. (2006). “Narrativity, Self, and Self Representation.” Narrative 14,
27–44.
Bordwell, David (1985). Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: U of Wisconsin P.
Bremond, Claude (1973). Logique du récit. Paris: Seuil.
Brooks, Peter (2005). “Narrative in and of the Law.” J. Phelan & P. Rabinowitz (eds).
A Companion to Narrative Theory. Malden: Blackwell, 415–26.
 Narrativity 325

– & Paul Gewirtz (1996). Law’s Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law. New
Haven: Yale UP.
Bruner, Jerome (1991). “The Narrative Construction of ‘Reality’.” Critical Inquiry 18,
1–21.
Chatman, Seymour (1990). Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Cohen, Keith (1979). Film and Fiction. New Haven: Yale UP.
Cohn, Dorrit (1978). Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Conscious­
ness in Fiction. Princeton: Princeton UP.
– (1999). The Distinction of Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Culler, Jonathan (1975). Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Stu-
dy of Literature. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Doležel, Lubomír (1979). “Extensional and Intensional Narrative Worlds.” Poetics 8,
193–211.
– (1983). “Proper Names, Definite Descriptions, and the Intensional Structure of
Kafka’s ‘The Trial’.” Poetics 12, 511–26.
– (1998). Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP.
Fludernik, Monica (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
– (2003). “Natural Narratology and Cognitive Parameters.” D. Herman (ed). Narra-
tive Theory and the Cognitive Sciences. Stanford: CSLI Publications, 243–67.
Forster, Edward M. ([1927] 1962). Aspects of the Novel. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Grabócz, Márta (forthcoming). Musique, Narrativité, Signification.
Greimas, Algirdas Julien ([1969] 1977). “Elements of a Narrative Grammar.” Diacrit­
ics 7, 23–40.
– ([1973] 1989). “Description and Narrativity: ‘The Piece of String’.” New Literary
History 20, 615–26.
– ([1983] 1987). “A Problem of Narrative Semiotics: Objects of Value.” A. J. G. On
Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
– & Joseph Courtés (1979). Sémiotique: dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du lan­
gage. Paris: Hachette.
– & Paul Ricœur (1989). “On Narrativity.” New Literary History 20, 551–62.
Hamburger, Käte ([1957] 1993). The Logic of Literature. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Herman, David (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
– (2009). Basic Elements of Narrative. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hühn, Peter (2008). “Functions and Forms of Eventfulness in Narrative Fiction.”
J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa (eds). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 141–
63.
Iser, Wolfgang ([1972] 1974). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in
Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Jakobson, Roman ([1935] 1971). “The Dominant.” L. Matejka & K. Pomorska (eds).
Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views. Cambridge: MIT
P, 105–110.
326 Narrativity

Jannidis, Fotis (2003). “Narratology and Narrative.” T. Kindt & H.-H. Müller (eds).
What Is Narratology? Questions and Answers Regarding the Status of a Theory.
Berlin: de Gruyter, 35–54.
Kafalenos, Emma (2006). Narrative Causalities. Columbus: Ohio State UP.
Keen, Suzanne (2003). Narrative Form. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kermode, Frank (1983). The Art of Telling: Essays on Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard
UP.
Kramer, Lawrence (1991). “Musical Narratology: A Theoretical Outline.” Indiana The­
ory Review 12, 141–62.
Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P.
Leitch, Thomas M. (1986). What Stories Are: Narrative Theory and Interpretation.
University Park: Pennsylvania State UP.
McClary, Susan (1997). “The Impromptu that Trod on a Loaf: or How Music Tells
Stories.” Narrative 5, 20–35.
McHale, Brian (2001). “Weak Narrativity: The Case of Avant-Garde Narrative Poetry.”
Narrative 9, 161–67.
Metz, Christian ([1974] 1982). The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cine-
ma. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Nelles, William (1997). Frameworks: Narrative Levels and Embedded Narrative. New
York: Peter Lang.
Newcomb, Anthony (1987). “Schuman and Late-Eighteenth-Century Narrative Strate-
gies.” Nineteenth-Century Music 11, 164–75.
Pavel, Thomas G. (1986). Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Phelan, James (2005). “Narrative Judgements and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative:
Ian McEwan’s Atonement.” J. Phelan & P. Rabinowitz (eds). A Companion to Nar­
rative Theory. Malden: Blackwell, 322–36.
– (2007). Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory
of Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State UP.
Pier, John (2008). “After this, therefore because of this.” J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa
(eds). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 109–40.
Prince, Gerald ([1987] 2003). A Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
– (1999). “Revisiting Narrativity.” W. Grünzweig & A. Solbach (eds). Grenzüber­
schreitungen: Narratologie im Kontext / Transcending Boundaries: Narratology in
Context. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 43–51.
– (2000). “Forty-One Questions on the Nature of Narrative.” Style 34, 317–17.
– (2008). “Narrativehood, Narrativity, Narratability.” J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa
(eds). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 19–27.
Rabinowitz, Peter J. (1987). Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics
of Interpretation. Ithaca: U of Cornell P.
Richardson, Brian (1997). Unlikely Stories: Causality and the Nature of Modern Nar­
rative. Newark: U of Delaware P.
Ricœur, Paul ([1980] 1981). “Narrative Time.” W. J. T. Mitchell (ed). On Narrative.
Chicago: U of Chicago P.
– ([1985] 1988). Time and Narration. Vol. 3. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
 Narrativity 327

– (1992). “The Modes of Narrativity and Their Visual Metaphors.” Style 26, 368–87.
– (2004). “Introduction.” M.-L. R. (ed). Narrative across Media: The Languages of
Storytelling. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1–40.
– (2005a). “Media and Narrative.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia of
Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 288–92.
– (2005b). “Tellability.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia of Narra-
tive Theory. London: Routledge, 589–91.
– (2005c). “On the Theoretical Foundations of Transmedial Narratology.” J. Ch.
Meister (ed). Narratology beyond Literary Criticism: Mediality, Disciplinarity.
Berlin: de Gruyter, 1–23.
– (2006a). Avatars of Story: Narrative Modes in Old and New Media. Minneapolis:
U of Minnesota P.
– (2006b). “Semantics, Pragmatics, and Narrativity: A Response to David Rudrum.”
Narrative 14, 188–96.
– (2007). “Toward a Definition of Narrative.” D. Herman (ed). The Cambridge Com­
panion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 22–35.
Sacks, Oliver (1985). The Man Who Mistook His Hat for a Wife and Other Clinical
Tales. New York: Summit Books.
Schmid, Wolf (2003). “Narrativity and Eventfulness.” T. Kindt & H.-H. Müller (eds).
What Is Narratology? Questions and Answers Regarding the Status of a Theory.
Berlin: de Gruyter, 17–34.
Scholes, Robert (1982). Semiotics and Interpretation. New Haven: Yale UP.
Stanzel, Franz ([1979] 1984). A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Sternberg, Meir (1978). Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction. Bal­
timore: Johns Hopkins UP.
– (1992). “Telling in Time (II): Chronology, Teleology, Narrativity.” Poetics Today
13, 463–541.
– (2001). “How Narrativity Makes a Difference.” Narrative 9, 115–22.
– (2003). “Universals of Narrative and their Cognitivist Fortunes (I).” Poetics Today
24, 297–395.
– (2008). “If-Plots: Narrativity and the Law-Code.” J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa
(eds). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 29–107.
Strawson, Galen (2004). “Against Narrativity.” Ratio n.s 17, 428–52.
Sturgess, Philip J. M. (1992). Narrativity: Theory and Practice. Oxford UP.
Tomaševskij, Boris (Tomashevsky) ([1925] 1965). “Thematics.” L. T. Lemon & M. J.
Reis (eds). Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P,
61–95.
Tynjanov, Jurij ([1927] 1971). “On Literary Evolution.” L. Matejka & K. Pomorska
(eds). Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views. Cambridge:
MIT P, 66–78.
Walsh, Richard (2003). “Fictionality and Mimesis: Between Narrativity and Fictional
Worlds.” Narrative 11, 110–21.
– (forthcoming). “Dreaming and Narrative Theory.” F. Aldama & P. C. Hogan (eds).
Toward a Theory of Narrative Acts. Austin: U of Texas P.
White, Hayden (1973). Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century
Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
328 Narrativity

– (1978). Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hop­

kins UP.
– (1981). “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.” W. J. T.
Mitchell (ed). On Narrative. U of Chicago P, 1–24.
Wolf, Werner (2002). “Das Problem der Narrativität in Literatur, bildender Kunst und
Musik: Ein Beitrag zu einer intermedialen Erzähltheorie.” V. Nünning & A. Nün­
ning (eds). Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär. Trier: WVT,
23–104.
– (2004). “‘Cross that Border—Close that Gap’: Towards an Intermedial Narrato­
logy.” EJES – European Journal for English Studies 8, 81–103.
Woolf, Virginia ([1927] 1994). “The new Biography.” A. McNeillie (ed). The Essays
of Virginia Woolf. London: Hogarth, vol. 4, 473–80.

5.2 Further Reading

Baroni, Raphaël (2007). La Tension narrative. Suspense, curiosité et surprise. Paris:
Seuil.
Brés, Jacques (1994). La narrativité. Louvain: Suculot.
Fleischman, Suzanne (1990). Tense and Narrativity: From Medieval Performance to
Modern Fiction. Austin: U of Texas P.
Gaudreault, André (1988). Du littéraire au filmique: système du récit. Paris: Méridien
Kincksieck.
Kearns, Michael (1999). Rhetorical Narratology. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Kellner, Hans (1987). “Narrativity in History: Poststructuralism and Since.” History
and Theory 26, 1–29.
– (1990). “‘As Real as It Gets…’ Ricœur and Narrativity.” Philosophy Today 34,
229–42.
Meister, Jan Christoph (2007). “‘Narrativité’, ‘événement’ et objectivation de la tem­
poralité.” J. Pier (ed). Théorie du récit: l’apport de la recherche allemande. Ville-
neuve d’Asq: Septentrion, 189–207.
Prince, Gerald (1996). “Remarks on Narrativity.” C. Wahlin (ed). Perspectives on Nar­
ratology: Papers from the Stockholm Symposium on Narratology. Frankfurt a.M.:
Peter Lang, 95–106.
Odin, Roger (2000). De la fiction. Bruxelles: De Boeck.
Singer, Alan (1983). “The Methods of Form: Narrativity and Social Consciousness.”
SubStance 41, 64–77.
Tiffeneau, Dorian, ed. (1980). La narrativité. Paris: CNRS.
Wolf, Werner (2003). “Narrative and Narrativity: A Narratological Reconceptualization
and its Applicability to the Visual Arts.” Word and Image 19, 180–97.
 Narratology
Jan Christoph Meister

1 Definition

Narratology is a humanities discipline dedicated to the study of the log-

ic, principles, and practices of narrative representation.
Dominated by structuralist approaches at its beginning, narratology
has developed into a variety of theories, concepts, and analytic proce-
dures. Its concepts and models are widely used as heuristic tools, and
narratological theorems play a central role in the exploration and mod­
eling of our ability to produce and process narratives in a multitude of
forms, media, contexts, and communicative practices

2 Explication

As a human science, narratology is historically defined and reflects on­

going changes in research agendas and methodologies in the humani-
ties. At the same time, the persistence of narratological inquiry for
more than four decades, despite its increasing “centrifugal tendencies”
(Barry 1990), testifies to its cohesion as a system of scientific prac­
tices.
During its initial or “classical” phase, from the mid-1960s to the
early 1980s, narratologists were particularly interested in identifying
and defining narrative universals. 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). However, a
decade later, narratology was alternatively described as (a) a theory
(Prince 2003: 1), (b) a method (Kindt & Müller 2003: 211), or (c) a
discipline (Fludernik & Margolin 2004: 149).
The third option seems most adequate: the concept of discipline
subsumes theory and method, acknowledging narratology’s dual nature
as both a theoretical and an application-oriented academic approach to
narrative. Narratology is no longer a single theory, but rather comprises
a group of related theories (cf. Herman ed. 1999). This has motivated
330 Narratology

some to conclude that narratology is in fact a textual theory whose

scope extends beyond narratives and to claim that “none of the distinc­
tions introduced by narratology to text theory is specific to any genre”
(Titzmann 2003: 201).
However, contemporary “postclassical” narratology cannot be re­
duced to a text theory, either. Over the past twenty years, narratologists
have paid increasing attention to the historicity and contextuality of
modes of narrative representation as well as to its pragmatic function
across various media, while research into narrative universals has been
extended to cover narrative’s cognitive and epistemological functions.
Against this background, two questions deserve particular attention:
(a) how does narratology relate to other disciplines that include the
study of narrative? (b) how can its status as a methodology be charac­
terized? Five observations can be made in response to these questions
which at the same time substantiate the above definition of narratology.
(i) Narratology is not the theory of narrative (Bal 1985), but rather a
theory of narrative (Prince 1995: 110; Nünning 2003: 227–28). Other
theories of narrative coexist with narratological ones. The relation be-
tween narrative theory and narratology is thus not symmetrical, but
hierarchical and inclusive (Nünning & Nünning 2002: 19).
(ii) At the same time, narratology is more than a theory. While it
may not have lived up to the scientistic pretension expressed in its in­
vocation as a new “science of narrative” (Todorov 1969: 10), it does
qualify as a discipline. It has a defined object domain, explicit models
and theories, a distinct descriptive terminology, transparent analytical
procedures and the institutional infrastructure typical of disciplines: of­
ficial organizations; specialized knowledge resources (journals, series,
handbooks, dictionaries, bibliographies, web portals, etc.); a diverse
scientific community engaging in national, international, and interdis­
ciplinary research projects. And last but not least, narratology is taught
in undergraduate and graduate courses.
(iii) Narratology’s overriding concern remains with narrative repre-
sentation as type, although it does not preclude the study of narrative
tokens. Defining narratology in positive terms may prove difficult, but
defining it ex negativo is not: a statement on narrative representa-
tion―a theory, an argument, but also a concrete empirical finding―is
not narratological if it does not ultimately concern “narrative qua nar­
rative” (Prince 1990: 10).
(iv) In the wake of the “narrative turn,” the application of narrato-
logical tools to extra-narratological research problems has become
more and more widespread, resulting in a multitude of compound or
“hyphenated” narratologies. However, in a theoretical perspective not
 Narratology 331

every approach labeled “narratological” automatically constitutes a

new narratology sensu strictu. While one subset of the new approaches
comprises methodological variants (natural narratology, critical narra­
tology, cognitive narratology, etc.; Herman 2002; Fehn et al. eds. 1992;
Fludernik 1996), others focus on thematic and ideology-critical con­
cerns (post-colonial narratology, feminist narratology, etc.; cf. Nünning
2003; Nünning & Nünning 2002).
(v) Despite the high level of academic attention enjoyed by the
practices and products of human narrative competence, the common­
sense notion of narrative is still predominantly associated with text-
based narratives. “Narrative representation” is therefore a preferable
definition of narratology’s object of study in that it counteracts this re­
ductionism in two ways: (a) narrative representation is not media spe­
cific, since its specificity is of a functional order and lies in narrativity.
(b) “representation” denotes the product as well as the process of
representing or, as Prince stated: “Narrative is an act and it is an ob­
ject” (1990: 4).

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 Coining of the Term “Narratology”

The French term narratologie was coined by Todorov (1969: 10), who
argued for a shift in focus from the surface level of text-based narrative
(i.e. concrete discourse as realized in the form of letters, words and
sentences) to the general logical and structural properties of narrative
as a univers de représentations (9). Todorov thus called for a new type
of generalizing theory that could be applied to all domains of narrative,
and in fact for a hypothetical “science that does not exist yet; let’s call
it NARRATOLOGY, or science of narrative.”
The neologism alluded to social and natural sciences such as soci­
ology and biology (Herman 2005: 19), and its invention by Todorov is
sometimes interpreted as a foundational act. However, the assumption
of a direct link between the history of the concept and the history of the
discipline is misleading: hardly any of the important contributions to
early narratology explicitly associated itself with “narratology” by title
(e.g. Communications 8, 1966; Genette 1972; Prince 1973; Bremond
1973; Culler 1975; Chatman 1978). Bibliometrical analysis of some
4,500 entries listed in the online bibliography of the “Interdisciplinary
Center for Narratology” (ICN) shows that usage of the concept as a
methodological and disciplinary identifier in French, Dutch, German,
and English monographs and journal articles only became popular after
332 Narratology

the publication of Bal’s Narratologie in 1977. The first use of the term
in an English title is found in Ryan (1979) and in a German title in
Schmidt (1989).
One of the reasons for the scientific community’s hesitant accept­
ance of the name “narratology” was the proliferation of related and
more general concepts as well as of alternative research agendas con­
cerned with narrative. 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. Among the Russian avant-garde, for whom
poetry dominated literature, the call for a “theory of prose” amounted
to a plea for a revaluation of the other hemisphere, while important
American contributions such as Booth (1961) or Chatman (1978,
1990a) evolved from the tradition of New Criticism and rhetoric. Fi­
nally, French narratologists were rooted in structural linguistics and se­
miology (Greimas 1966), in logic (Bremond 1973), or in rhetorical and
traditional grammatical categories Genette (1972).

3.2 Precursors

Core elements and ideas at play in the narratological modeling of nar­

rative were introduced as early as Greek antiquity, while others origin­
ated from the late 19th century onward, particularly in the context of
phenomenological, morphological and hermeneutic taxonomies and
theories of literary and folk narratives.

3.2.1 Plato and Aristotle: Representational Modes and

the Functional Relation between Character and Action
In The Republic, Plato differentiated literary genres on the basis of the
genre-specific constellation of two fundamental modes of speech
termed mimesis, the direct imitation of speech in the form of the char­
acters’ verbatim dialogues and monologues, and diegesis, which com­
prises all utterances attributable to the author. 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. This fun­
damental 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), namely voice.
Aristotle’s Poetics presented a second criterion that has remained
fundamental for the understanding of narrative: the distinction between
 Narratology 333

the totality of events taking place in a depicted world and the de facto
narrated plot or muthos. He pointed out that the latter is always a con­
struct presenting a subset of events, chosen and arranged according to
aesthetic considerations. This resulted in the Poetics’ functional ap­
proach to fictional protagonists and their actions, the latter explained as
governed by the aesthetic and logical requirements of the overall
muthos.

3.2.2 The Normative Paradigm: 17th to early 20th-century Theories

of the Novel
Prose narrative as we know it today became an accepted part of the lit­
erary canon only from the 18th century onward. Focusing on aspects of
thematics and didactics, the main question motivating its early theorists
(e.g. Huet 1670; Blanckenburg 1774) was therefore normative: would
the new literary form stand up to the qualitative standards of the an­
cient epos? This concern continued to dominate many theories of the
paradigmatic narrative genre right into the early 20th century, most
prominently in Lukács (1916).

3.2.3 Re-introducing the Formal Paradigm:

Spielhagen and Friedemann
Spielhagen (1876) was one of the first to address formal features of
narrative again, and he did so by distinguishing novel and novella in
terms of the complexity and functionality of characters and the differ­
ent economies of action and plot design. His study (1883) introduced a
fundamental taxonomic distinction between first- and third-person nar­
ration and also reflected on the author-narrator relation. Motivated by a
dislike for anti-illusionary narrative devices, Spielhagen declared that
the ideal narrative never alerts the reader to the ongoing process of nar­
ration.
Friedemann (1910) took exception to this normative postulate. For
her, mediality was a constitutive element of narration rather than a de­
fect, and the narrating instance an inherent feature of any narrative,
whether (fictionally) present or logically implied. The methodological
significance of this insight can hardly be overestimated: Friedemann
had effectively defined the essence of narrative in structural terms, tak­
ing the principle of Plato’s phenomenological definition of the epos
one step further.
334 Narratology

3.2.4 From Catalogue to Formula: Aarne-Thompson vs. Propp

Late 19th-century literary history and theory equated narrative with lit­
erary narrative, thus leaving research on the folktale to specialists. 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), used internationally to
the present day (Uther 2004). The expanded catalogue now lists 2,500
summarized variants of folk tales across eight categories.
A theoretical attempt to reduce literary narratives to basic principles
was presented in Forster (1927). He argued that the hypothetical mini-
mal story “The king died, and then the queen died” could be trans­
formed into a valid narrative plot by the addition of an explanatory
clause such as “of grief.” Focusing on empirical folk tales, Propp
(1928) presented a model of the elementary components of narratives
and the way they are combined. However, in contrast to his prede­
cessors, Propp abstracted from the content plane altogether in order to
describe a particular type of Russian fairy tales in terms of a sequence
of thirty-one abstract “functions.”
Propp’s approach was to receive considerable attention among the
French structuralists who, while acknowledging the model’s originali-
ty, at the same time criticized it for its purely sequential, mono-linear
logic of action and suggested replacing it with combinatory, multi-lin­
ear models (Lévi-Strauss 1976). 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 gram­
mar being the other. The idea of a generative grammar of narrative was
to be taken up not only by narratologists (Prince 1973, 1980; van Dijk
1975; Pavel 1985), but also by Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers
who tried to design artificial story telling systems (Rumelhart 1980;
Bringsjord & Ferrucci 1999).

3.2.5 Russian Formalism

Russian formalism, which flourished from about 1916 until suppressed
by the Stalinists in the late 1920s, had a more radical cultural-ideologi-
cal agenda: its aim was to prove the autonomy of art as form. Litera-
ture in particular was considered a phenomenon sui generis that cannot
be explained adequately in terms of content or of biographical or his­
torical context. Šklovskij (1917) postulated the need to study literature
in terms of purely formal features such as the principle of defamiliar-
ization, which governs the literary use of language and accentuates the
 Narratology 335

textual artifact as an autonomous signifying structure. The most influ­

ential contribution from a narratological perspective was the formalist
differentiation of fabula and sujet (Tomaševskij 1925), in which the
latter is defined as a defamiliarisation of the former.

3.2.6 Pre-structuralist Theories of Narrative:

Perspective, Time, Logic and Rhetoric

3.2.6.1 Perspective
Early in the last century, the question of narrative → perspective be­
came the subject of a poetological controversy initiated by the novelist
and theorist Henry James. He advocated the scenic method of narration
in which narrative perspective is strictly tied to the epistemological
constraints of a particular character, a technique demonstrated particu­
larly in The Ambassadors (1903). James’s admirer Lubbock (1921)
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. from pure “showing”).
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 char­
acters. Friedman (1955) extended the scope further, proposing a graded
spectrum of eight modes of perspective in which each type is deter-
mined by its ratio of character to narrator-bound sequences. 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 de­
veloped by Uspenskij (1970), a member of the Moscow-Tartu school of
semiotics. The idea has been taken further in Schmid (2005), which
represents the most comprehensive model of perspective to date.
A phenomenological contribution to the theory of perspective was
that of the Austrian Anglicist Stanzel, who identified three proto-typi-
cal “narrative situations” (1955). In the “I narrative situation,” the nar­
rator exists and acts within the narrated world; in the “authorial narra-
tive situation,” he is positioned outside the narrated world but domin­
ates 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 perspec-
tive of the reflector character. Stanzel understood these three narrative
336 Narratology

situations to be ideal types and thus modeled them on a synthetic typo­

logical circle. Actual narratives, he observed, often occupy an interme­
diate position between these situations and are thus best modeled in
terms of a synthetic typological circle.
The controversy over the pragmatic merits of Stanzel’s approach
versus its methodological constraints and inconsistencies continues to
the present day (cf. Cohn 1981; Kindt & Müller 2006; Cornils 2007;
Schernus 2007), as does the more general narratological general debate
on the concept of narrative perspective (cf. van Peer & Chatman eds.
2001; Hühn et al. eds. 2009).

3.2.6.2 Time
With respect to the category of time, Müller (1948) introduced an
equally fundamental distinction between “narrated time” (erzählte Zeit)
vs. “time of narration” (Erzählzeit). The correlation between the two
dimensions, as he showed, characterizes the pace of a narrative.
This approach was further explored by Lämmert (1955), one of the
first large-scale taxonomies of narrative. For Lämmert, the phenomen-
ology of individual narratives can be traced back to a stable, universal
repertoire of elementary modes of narrating. 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. (The category of time in
Genette 1972 is examined in similar terms.) Drawing on Lubbock’s
(1921) work as well as on Petsch (1934), Lämmert related these ele­
mentary forms of narrative temporality to the principal modes of narra­
tion such as scenic presentation, report, reflection, and description. Un­
fortunately, the systematic gain of his contribution was hampered by an
overly complex and at times “fuzzy” taxonomy which tries to account
for all forms of narrative flashbacks and flash forwards.

3.2.6.3 Logic and Rhetoric

A philosophically more concise contribution to narrative theory was
Hamburger (1957), a book which explored the semantics and pragmat­
ics of literary communication, and in particular the specific logic of the
use of temporal and personal deixis under the conditions of fictional
reference. Hamburger pointed out that neither the subject of an utter­
ance nor the utterance’s temporal location and reference can be ad­
equately inferred from the words and sentences of a literary narrative:
literature overwrites the rules and conventions of everyday language
use with its own logic.
 Narratology 337

The question of the validity and reliability of narrative utterances

was again raised by Booth (1961), this time from a rhetorical and eth-
ical perspective. He introduced the concept of “unreliable narrator,” in­
terpreting cases of conflicting and self-contradicting narration as an
aesthetic device aimed at signaling the author’s moral and normative
distance from his narrator. However, the way in which Booth con-
structed his argument made it necessary to introduce a second, more
speculative concept, namely that of the → implied author. While the
concept of “unreliable narrator,” rejected by structuralists such as
Genette (1983), has become more accepted in post-classical narratol-
ogy, the controversy over the implied author’s plausibility is ongoing
(Booth 2005; Kindt & Müller 2006).

3.3 French Structuralism: 1966–1980

French structuralism eventually gave the decisive impulse for the for-
mation of narratology as a methodologically coherent, structure-ori­
ented variant of narrative theory. 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.
Three traditions informed the new structuralist approach toward
narrative: Russian Formalism and Proppian morphology; structural lin­
guistics in the Saussurean tradition as well as the structural anthropol-
ogy of Lévi-Strauss; the transformational generative grammar of
Chomsky. Against this background, the structuralists engaged in a sys­
tematic re-examination of the two dimensions of narrative already iden­
tified by Šklovskij, fabula and sujet, re-labeled by Todorov in French
as histoire and discours and by Genette as histoire and récit.
From 1966 to 1972, narratology focused mainly on the former. At
the most abstract level, the semiotician Greimas concentrated on the
elementary structure of signification. Building on Lévi-Strauss’s (1955,
1958) structural analysis of myths, Greimas (1966) proposed a deep-
level model of signification termed the “semiotic square,” which rep­
resents the semiotic infrastructure of all signifying systems. The map­
ping of this universal deep structure onto a given narrative’s surface
structure can then be explained in terms of transformational rules. Fi­
nally, a typology of six functional roles attributable to characters (main
vs. secondary character, opponent vs. helper, sender vs. receiver; cf.
Greimas 1973) complements the approach. Barthes (1966) proposed a
functional systematics of narrated events which distinguishes “ker-
338 Narratology

nels,” i.e. obligatory events that guarantee the story’s coherence, and
optional “satellites” that serve to embellish the basic plot. Todorov
(1969) furthered the linguistic analogy by equating actions to verbs,
characters to nouns and their attributes to adjectives, and then by then
linking these elements through modal operators. This narrative syntax
operates on the abstract level of a narrative langue: instead of account­
ing only for the manifest sequence of events represented in a given fic­
tional world, this “grammar” also included the logic of virtual action
sequences, e.g. those imagined in a narrated character’s mind.
Bremond (1973) explored the logic of represented action from yet an­
other angle, modeling it as a series of binary choices in which an
“eventuality” results in “action” or in “non-action” and, in the former
case, in “completion” or in “non-completion.” The interest in questions
of action logic and narrative grammar was taken up in Prince (1973)
which synthesized and systematized the earlier approaches, and yet
again in Pavel (1985), which combined Bremond’s abstract binary log-
ic with game theory (cf. Herman 2002).
While the theoretical ambition and level of abstraction of early
structuralist models of narrative were impressive, their practical rele-
vance was hard to prove to philologists. 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.
This systematic and methodological gap was addressed by Genette
(1972), who presented a comprehensive taxonomy of discourse phe­
nomena developed alongside a detailed analysis of narrative composi­
tion and technique in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu. Broadly
speaking, Genette’s narratological taxonomy covered three functional
domains of literary narrative: the temporal structure and dynamics of
representation (in the dual sense of product and process of representa­
tional activity); the mode of narration and its underlying logic of nar­
rative communication; and the epistemological and normative con­
straints of the gathering and communication of information during the
narrative process. The terminology and neologisms introduced by
Genette in together with his taxonomy soon became the narratological
lingua franca.
In contrast to his formalist predecessors and structuralist colleagues,
Genette had no intention of designing a fully coherent and self-con­
tained theory of narrative. This sparked fundamental narratological
 Narratology 339

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. Some of this criticism was
addressed in Genette (1983).

3.4 Poststructuralist Narratology: 1980–1990

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). The process thus mirrored the general shift from structural­
ist to poststructuralist methodologies that was taking place in the hu­
manities at that time.
Chatman (1978) demonstrated the applicability of narratology to
visual narratives. Bal (1985) 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 poly­
vocality (Lanser 1981). Derridaen deconstruction was introduced by
Culler (1981), who questioned the implicit genealogy from story (his­
toire, fabula) to discourse and argued that the relation of dependency
between the two is the exact opposite: discourse generates story. The
psychological motivation at play in this process of retrospective em­
plotting was explored in Brooks (1984). Another influence came from
feminist studies: Lanser (1986) proposed to include gender as a system­
atic category for the narratological analysis of the narratorial profile as
well as of point of view and mode of presentation. On a more abstract
level, Pavel (1986) and Doležel (1988) extended the narratological
model by introducing modal logic and the theory of possible worlds.
These models accounted for the implicit, non-realized virtual narratives
indicated by fictional characters’ hopes, wishes, etc. which may not
materialize but nevertheless serve to point to the theoretical possibility
of an alternative course of events. Ryan (1991) explored this line of
reasoning even further, linking it to the simulation paradigm of AI. Fi­
nally, the postclassical phase of narratology saw an increase in the ex­
porting of narratological concepts and theorems to other disciplines
(→ narration in various disciplines), thus contributing to the “narrative
turn” (cf. White 1980; Kreiswirth 1995).

3.5 Post-classical Narratology and “New” Narratologies:

1990 to Present

With time, the tension between structuralist narratology’s original con­

cern for systematicity and logical coherence and the need for a re­
340 Narratology

sponse to calls for a more pragmatically oriented theory of narrative

could no longer be ignored, as observed by Prince (2003).
Fludernik (1996) signaled a shift in focus from text-based phenom­
ena to the cognitive functions of oral and non-literary narrative, thus
opening a new chapter in the narratological project. In contrast, Gibson
(1996) argued for a radical deconstruction of the entire conceptual ap­
paratus developed by the structuralists. Whether such philosophical cri­
ticism in the Derridaen vein deserves to be classified “narratological”
has however been met with skepticism (e.g. Nünning & Nünning 2002:
15).
Even so, the deconstructionist and postmodernist onslaught stimu­
lated a multitude of new approaches aimed at combining the structural­
ists’ concern for systematicity with a renewal of interest in the cultural
and philosophical issues of history and ideology. The resulting wave of
critically oriented narratological models and theories proved to be
methodologically heterogeneous, prompting Herman (ed. 1999) to in­
troduce the plural concept of “narratologies.” A comprehensive survey
by Nünning & Nünning (2002) and by Nünning (2003) grouped the
proliferation of “new narratologies” that got underway during the
1990s into eight categories, three of which have turned out to be the
dominant methodological paradigms of contemporary narratology:
(a) Contextualist narratology (Chatman 1990b) relates the phenom­
ena encountered in narrative to specific cultural, historical, thematic,
and ideological contexts. This extends the focus from purely structural
aspects to issues of narrated content.
(b) Cognitive narratology (Herman 2000, ed. 2003) focuses on the
human intellectual and emotional processing of narratives. This ap­
proach is not restricted to literary narratives: “natural” everyday and
oral narratives are considered to represent an underlying anthropologi-
cal competence in its original form (Fludernik 1996). Cognitivist ap­
proaches 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. 2003; Meister 2003; Lönneker et al. eds. 2005).
(c) Transgeneric approaches (→ narration in poetry and drama) and
intermedial approaches (→ narration in various media; cf. Ryan 2005,
ed. 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. Application, adaptation and reformula­
tion of narratological concepts go hand in hand with the narratological
analysis of drama (Fludernik 2000; Jahn 2001; Richardson 2007;
Fludernik 2008; Nünning & Sommer 2008), poetry (Hühn 2004; Hühn
& Kiefer 2005; Schönert et al. 2007), film (Bordwell 1985; Branigan
 Narratology 341

1992; Schlickers 1997; Mittell 2007; Eder 2008), music (Kramer 1991;
Wolf 2002; Seaton 2005; Grabócz forthcoming), the visual and per­
forming arts (Bal 1991; Ryan 2003, ed. 2004; → performativity), com­
puter games (Ryan 2001, 2006, 2008) as well as other domains. This
broadening of the narratological palette beyond specific media high­
lights the necessity for further research on → narrativity.

3.6 Outlook

The development of narratology has been dependent not only on its

theoretical or meta-theoretical advances, but has also emerged with the
gradual consolidation of organizational and institutional structures. In
this respect, three phases can be identified:
Phase 1: The formation of cross-disciplinary narratological interest
groups. Beginning with the contributors to the programmatic 1966 spe­
cial 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 Am­
sterdam School initiated by Bal) have played a decisive role in shaping
narratology as a paradigmatic inter-discipline.
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 Erzählfor-
schung” at Wuppertal University as well as the “Center for Narrato­
loical Studies” at the University of Southern Denmark and the “Project
Narrative” at Ohio State University in the US.
Phase 3: The founding of national and international narratological
umbrella organizations. These include the North American “Interna­
tional Society for the Study of Narrative,” the Scandinavian “Nordic
Network,” and the “European Narratology Network.”
To date, the theoretical definition of narratology has generally fol­
lowed one of three lines of reasoning: the first upholds or questions
narratology’s original formalist-structuralist credo; the second explores
family resemblances among the old and the “new narratologies” and
their various research paradigms; the third focuses on the methodologi-
cal distinction between hermeneutic and heuristic functions, sometimes
suggesting that narratology’s scope ought to be restricted to the latter
and sometimes arguing that it ought to be defined in even more general
terms. While the merit of these theoretical definitions is obvious, narra­
342 Narratology

tology’s potential for further development is perhaps better described

in terms of an interaction of three concurrent processes: expansion of
the body of domain-specific theories on which narratology is based;
continuous broadening of its epistemic reach; consolidation of an insti­
tutional infrastructure, which has helped to transform a methodology
into a discipline.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

The diversification of narratology since the 1990s has not only borne
witness to its continued relevance, but it has also underscored the need
to address the problem of methodological identity. What exactly is nar­
ratology (cf. Kindt & Müller 2003)? How can it be defined in theo­
retical and methodological terms? The need for critical self-reflection
by practicing narratologists can be argued from two angles.
Even during the heyday of poststructuralism, it was observed that
“visits to the tool shed of narratology may be of advantage even to
those making critical theory their main residence” (Hoesterey 1991:
214). However, can conceptual imports taken from structuralist narra­
tology retain their theoretical precision and integrity in a foreign meth­
odological context, or are they not rather destined to degenerate into
mere metaphoric labels? Descriptive concepts such as mise en abyme
or metalepsis seem to be less at risk (cf. Wolf 2005; Schmid 2005a),
while others―notably the core narratological concept of narrator―re-
sist straightforward appropriation, as film or computer game studies
(e.g. Neitzel 2005) have come to realize.
Yet examples like these also point to a more fundamental issue that
extends beyond the scope of individual concepts. What is the principal
methodological status of the undertaking now that it has transformed
into a “Narratology beyond Literary Studies” (Meister et al. 2005): is
narratology a tool, a method, a program, a theory, or is it indeed a dis­
cipline (Schönert 2004)?
Nünning & Nünning’s comprehensive 2002 survey (cf. Nünning
2003) of the multitude of “new narratologies” concluded with a list of
six desiderata, calling for: (a) more studies in the history of narratolo-
gy; (b) concrete examples of narratological analyses of texts; (c) de­
tailed theoretical explication of narratological conceptual fundamen-
tals; (d) narratological reconstructions of phenomena relevant to liter­
ary history; (e) narratological work in the field of cultural history; (f)
research on intermedial aspects of narrative.
In the intervening years, most of these desiderata have been ad­
dressed at least in part. For example, the Russian formalists’ con­
 Narratology 343

stitutive role has been reconstructed in Schmid (ed. 2009), which in­
cludes seminal original texts in (German) translation. Others have in­
vestigated historical links between narratology and German Erzähl-
theorie (Cornils & Schernus 2003; Fludernik & Margolin 2004). Narra­
tological analyses of texts, films, visual artifacts, etc. were undertaken
starting in the 1970s and continue to nourish narratological reflection
today. Numerous studies―some of them book-length―have been de­
voted to fundamental concepts such as event and eventfulness (Schmid
2003), narrativity (Sturgess 1992; Sternberg 2001; Audet et al. 2006;
Pier & García Landa eds. 2008), action (Meister 2003), character (Jan­
nidis 2004; Eder 2008) and perspective (Hühn et al. eds. 2009); re­
search on procedural aspects of narrative that long remained unnoticed
has emanated from digital media studies (Ryan 2002, 2006).
By contrast, a narratologically based approach in literary history―
called for repeatedly (Bal 1986; Pavel 1990; Nünning 2000; Fludernik
2003, etc.)―is still outstanding. Similarly, the potential for interdiscip­
linary cooperation between narratology and text linguistics has also not
been fully exploited yet. After a promising start in the 1970s (van Dijk
1975) this work has been taken up only occasionally (e.g. Adam 1985;
Karlgren & Cutting 1994; Toolan 1988). Recent contributions such as
Adam (2005), Lehmann (2008) or Janik (2008) demonstrate the syn­
ergy of this approach.
Contemporary narratology has clearly responded to the call to
broaden the scope of methodology and object domain. At the same
time, the last two desiderata underscore literary narrative’s paradigmat­
ic status for the narratological study of narrative representation.

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– (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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 Narratology 349

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Dick, The Ambassadors, Ulysses. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
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350 Narratology

Wolf, Werner (2002). “Das Problem der Narrativität in Literatur, bildender Kunst und
Musik: ein Beitrag zu einer intermedialen Erzähltheorie.” V. Nünning & A. Nün­
ning (eds). Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär. Trier: WVT,
23–104.
– (2004). “‘Cross the Border―Close that Gap’: Towards an Intermedial Narrato­
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– (2005). “Metalepsis as a Transgeneric and Transmedial Phenomenon. A Case Study
of the Possibilities of ‘Exporting’ Narratological Concepts.” J. Ch. Meister (ed).
Narratology beyond Literary Criticism. Mediality, Disciplinarity. Berlin: de
Gruyter, 83–107.

5.2 Web Resources

NarrBib (short for “Narratological Bibliography”)
www.icn.uni-hamburg.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=8&Itemid=13
ENN (European Narratology Network)
www.narratology.net/
ICN (Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology, Hamburg University)
www.icn.uni-hamburg.de
Project Narrative (Ohio State University)
projectnarrative.osu.edu/
Zentrum für Erzählforschung (Bergische University, Wuppertal)
www.fba.uni-wuppertal.de/zef/
Center for Narratologiske Studier (University of Southern Denmark, Kolding)
www.sdu.dk/Om_SDU/Institutter_centre/Ilkm/Forskning/Forskningsprojekter/C_Narratologi.aspx
 Narrator
Uri Margolin

1 Definition

In the literal sense, the term “narrator” designates the inner-textual

(textually encoded) speech position from which the current narrative
discourse originates and from which references to the entities, actions
and events that this discourse is about are being made. Through a dual
process of metonymic transfer and anthropomorphization, the term nar­
rator is then employed to designate a presumed textually projected oc­
cupant of this position, the hypothesized producer of the current dis­
course, the individual agent who serves as the answer to Genette’s
question qui parle? The narrator, which is a strictly textual category,
should be clearly distinguished from the → author who is of course an
actual person.

2 Explication

A narrator is a linguistically indicated, textually projected and readerly

constructed function, slot or category whose occupant need not be
thought of in any terms but those of a communicative role. Terms de-
signating this role include discursive function or role, voice, source of
narrative transmission, producer of current discourse, teller, reporter,
narrating agent or instance. The position occupied by this presumed in­
ner-textual originator of the discourse functions as a logico-linguistic
center for all spatio-temporal and personal references occurring in the
discourse, i.e. as highest-level center of the discourse. An inner-textual
narrator can in principle be assigned to any narrative text, not just a fic­
tional one, and such ascription does not require any knowledge about
the actual world producer of the words of the text, be it a human being
or a computer program. The linguistically projected narrator and the
actual world producer will be confronted at a later stage (3.6).
Good reasons, stemming from text linguistics, philosophy, narra­
tology and common sense, can be adduced for the necessity or at least
advisability of granting the narrator category as defined above a central
352 Narrator

place in the description and interpretation, both informal and profes­

sional, of literary narratives. In Benveniste’s (1966) and Jakobson’s
(1971) text linguistics, any utterance is described as consisting of two
indissoluble components: the speech event (énonciation, saying) and
that which is said (énoncé) to which correspond, respectively, the sayer
(sujet de l’énonciation) and the one spoken of (sujet de l’énoncé).
Since narrative utterances are a subset of the universe of utterances,
they too must therefore contain a sayer. For narrative, the terms thus
translate into narration, narrated event, narrator and narrated agent(s),
respectively. A narrator can thus be defined as the sujet de l’énoncia-
tion of one or more utterances that represents an event (Coste 1989:
166). In terms of linguistic pragmatics or speech act theory, any narra-
tive, regardless of its length, is a macro speech act of the constative
type, claiming that such and such happened. For a claim to be made,
there needs to be an agent who makes this claim, hence the narrator. If
narrative is a report of acts and events, we need a reporter behind it,
and if it is a tale, we need a teller. In terms of communication theory,
any act of communication consists of a sender sending a message to a
receiver. A narrative consists of someone telling someone else that
something happened, and no such act can be imagined without a
sender-narrator position. Even a failed, confused or contradictory act of
reporting presupposes a narrator no less than a successful one. Follow­
ing Schmid (2005: 45–6), one can say that in writing down his text and
communicating it to real readers, the author represents the act(ivity) of
narrative communication between textual narrator and narratee.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Plato was the first to claim that the underlying difference between nar­
rative and drama as basic types of discourse consists in the difference
between directly showing and indirectly telling or reporting, rooted in
the absence or presence respectively of a mediating instance between
the characters’ speech and the audience. And the narrator is precisely
this mediating instance. Modern arguments for mediacy as the generic
hallmark of narrative can be found in Friedemann (1910) and Stanzel
(1955). In contemporary narratology it is customary to distinguish
between three functions which are essential to give rise to any narra-
tive: doing, seeing and saying (Bal 1981: 45). Thus, characters do cer­
tain things which are viewed from a certain perspective, and what is
seen is then reported. To these three functions there correspond three
roles: narrative agent, focalizer (which has been a subject of scholarly
controversy) and narrator. Baxtin’s (1934/35) influential theory of the
 Narrator 353

novel, which can be generalized to all narrative, regards the novel as

the site of interplay between two kinds of utterances: those stemming
from the characters and those stemming from an inner textual narrator.
The whole essence of narrative would be missed if one were to deny
the textual existence of a narrator as a stylistic and ideological position.
Finally, psychonarratology (e.g. Bortolussi & Dixon 2003) has shown
that readers process literary narratives in the same way as they do or­
dinary communication insofar as they assume a textually encoded con­
versational partner responsible for the contents of the narrative. This
mimetic-illusionist assumption has recently come under scrutiny by
cognitively-oriented narratologists (Nünning 2001; Fludernik 2003;
→ cognitive narratology). On this view, a literary narrative is a text
capable of creating in the reader’s mind the representational illusion of
observing an ongoing process of narrative communication in which a
more or less personalized narrator plays a key role. Identifying and
characterizing such a narrator is an optional naturalization or meaning
creation strategy open to the reader and building upon two kinds of in­
put: textual signals and storytelling scenarios (frames, schemes) the
reader already possesses from his real-life experience and which are
activated once a certain number of narrator indicators have been identi­
fied in the text (→ schemata). Works which destroy the illusion of an
independently existing narrated domain may still produce a powerful
representational illusion of narrative activity with a narrator figure be­
hind it. One can say in conclusion that the notion of narrator has been
approached and defined in terms of three distinct theoretical frame­
works (Grall 2007): rhetoric (speech act, communication); narratology
(mediation, interplay of utterances); and cognitive science (reader psy­
chology and models of text comprehension).

3.1 Identifying the Narrator: Constitutive Conditions

Some narrators are more marked and individuated than others. But
what are the minimal textual conditions under which one could identify
a distinct narrating position or voice? Such conditions could be repre-
sented as a hierarchical series. The text must be capable of being natu-
ralized as representing one or more reporting utterances or speech acts
stemming from one or more agents. Some texts, classified as narratives
in our culture, such as unframed interior monologues (Schnitzler’s
Fräulein Else) or textes-limites of modernism or postmodernism, do
not satisfy this requirement and consequently cannot be considered as
possessing any inscribed originators. The second condition is that it
should be possible to demarcate the utterances of which the text con­
354 Narrator

sists and assign each of them to a distinct voice or originator. (It is only
in rare cases that all utterances recorded in a text were originally made
by one speaker at one time.) The third condition is that one should be
able to determine the hierarchical relations between the different utter­
ances and their originators, as defined by such questions as who can
quote whom, who can refer to whom and who can report about whom
(Margolin 1991), but also to determine the total number of such origi-
nators and levels of speech in the text. Finally, and most crucially, one
should be able to identify a single, highest-level originator of all origi-
nators, so to speak: one general, primary or global textual narrating
voice, such that (a) the text as a whole can be seen as a macro speech
act or utterance emanating from that voice, and (b) all textually occur­
ring utterances originating with other speakers are embedded within
this macro speech act, that is, are merely quoted or mentioned in it.
There is no algorithm for deciding whether any or all of the above con­
ditions are satisfied by a given text even though readers make such de­
cisions semi-intuitively all the time. The muse who provides the an­
swer to the epic question at the beginning of the Iliad is the earliest
Western example of such a global narrator, but this occurs also with
the anonymous voices relating the whole of War and Peace or Père
Goriot. When it is not possible to identify a single highest-level narra-
tor, we are dealing with multi-narrator narratives (Faulkner’s As I Lay
Dying or The Sound and the Fury, Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red) in
which different textual segments consist of reports stemming from dif­
ferent speakers, none of whom occupy a position higher than the oth­
ers. “Narrator” in the prototypical sense, however, designates the
single, unified, stable, distinct human-like voice who produces the
whole narrative discourse we are reading. In general, although not uni­
versally, this discourse assumes the shape of an account of independ­
ently existing and known facts. Going one step further, the narrator can
be envisioned as a fictional agent who is part of the story world and
whose task it is to report from within it on events in this world which
are real or actual for him (Thomson-Jones 2007: 78).

3.1.1 “Unnatural Voices” in Postmodern Narratives

Richardson (2006) described the difficulty in defining a single or uni­
fied or stable highest-level narrator position in many postmodern texts.
In such texts, of which Beckett’s Trilogy is the showcase, it is some­
times impossible to locate a constant highest-level narrator, and even if
one is locatable, this utterer has no voice of his own or is mimetically
impossible. The first case involves either a constant reversal of levels
between quoter and quoted where “the one you invented has invented
 Narrator 355

you” (Beckett), or an open-ended regression of levels where whenever

we think we have finally reached the primary textual speaker, the un­
quoted quoter, it turns out that this discourse, too, is in fact being
quoted by a still higher-level voice. In the second case, the highest-
level speaker is a mere conduit or “mouth” (Beckett) voicing a dis­
course whose inscribed originator is someone else, so that all tokens of
“I” in this discourse designate not the utterer, but that “cantankerous
other” (Beckett). The net result is that “I seem to speak, it is not I;
about me—but it is not about me” (Beckett). The supposedly highest-
level voice ends up lacking all identity, as it is merely a “ghost writer”
for another or the mere conduit for another’s discourse or an imperso-
nator speaking as another (Margolin 1986/87). In the mimetically im­
possible case (Richardson 2006: 103–05), the primary speaker turns
out to be a number of distinct voices which merge without any explana­
tion, which contain so much incommensurable information that they
cannot be unified into one speech position or whose level is indeter-
minate and floating between the character, narrator and persona of the
biographical author, as when such a narrator claims to have invented
figures in other texts by the same author (e.g. Beckett’s Trilogy). Fi­
nally, a specific highest-level individual voice cannot be identified in a
discourse consisting of a verbal collage of recycled clichés from media
reports, advertising and the like (Petersen 1993: 138).

3.2 Individuating the Narrator

When a primary global narrator can be defined for a given narrative,

the discourse as a whole can be viewed as its macro speech act. Indi­
viduating the narrator in a literary fictional context means constructing
or inferring an image of the utterer with the sole means for so doing be­
ing the verbal record of his speech act. This task needs to be guided by
two theoretical frameworks: linguistic pragmatics, which seeks to de-
fine the time, place, and context of utterance and the utterer’s capabili-
ties, beliefs and communicative intentions; and the cognitive psycho-
logical theory of attribution, which seeks to infer from a behavior, in­
cluding verbal, the dispositions and attitudes of the agent (Margolin
1986). Now literary texts vary enormously as regards the kinds and the
amount of clues they provide for this purpose and the resultant textual
markedness of the narrator or “degree of narratorhood” (Chatman’s
term). At degree zero we have the impersonal or transparent mode of
narration associated with an anonymous voice or covert (effaced, im­
perceptible) narrator coming from nowhere and announcing categori-
cally that “once upon a time there was.” At the other end stands the
356 Narrator

perceptible, dramatized or personal mode of narration associated with

an overt narrator who could say things like “Living now in my old age
in the city of NN, I still remember with great affection what X did 30
years ago.” Obviously, the greater the number and diversity of the tex­
tual elements available for speaker indication, the richer the resultant
speaker image. Once again, the two extremes would be a mere voice
with no psychological person behind it and a concrete figure with both
an inner life and a body.

3.2.1 Types of Utterances

One major source of data for building the image of the narrator is
claims occurring in his/her discourse that go beyond the strict reporting
of individual facts. These include summaries, analyses, comments, and
generalizations of various kinds, all concerning the narrated domain.
Chatman (1978) has proposed a useful typology of such claims in as­
cending order from set descriptions and temporal summaries to reports
of what characters did not do, say or think, then to explanations, inter­
pretations and judgments of reported actions or characters, and ending
with generalizations of any kind, including purported general truths,
maxims and norms of action which go well beyond the reported events.
The extent of such claims varies enormously from one author to the
other, two extremes being Hemingway and Henry James. The aesthetic
desirability of such narratorial “intrusions” or “telling” beyond mere
“showing” has been the object of heated critical debate since the 19 th
century (e.g. Otto Ludwig, Friedrich Spielhagen, Käte Friedemann,
Percy Lubbock and Wayne C. Booth). Critics for whom narratorial me­
diation is a mere handmaiden for showing camera-like what happened
would advocate the avoidance of all such material and consider it a
mere deviation detracting from the effectiveness of the narration. Con­
versely, those for whom mediation is the very essence of narrative as
distinguished from drama would consider such material as radical en­
richment of “mere reporting.”

3.2.2 Situational Indicators

The types of utterances just mentioned help us individuate the narrator
as a mind, so to speak. But what about him/her as a person in a commu­
nicative situation? Here linguistic features play the major role. Doležel
(1967) has outlined several such features, again in hierarchical order.
First is the use of first- and second-person pronouns to indicate the
presence of the originator and the inscribed addressee of the current
speech event, both of whom are absent in third-person discourse. Next
is the use of all three major tenses, especially of the present tense, to
 Narrator 357

indicate the current communicative transaction relative to which all

narrated events are temporally ordered. In pure third-person past-tense
narration, on the other hand, the past tense is not related to any particu­
lar speech situation, but is more aspectual, merely indicative of the nar­
rated events already having taken place. Third is the use of deictics
(demonstratives, indexicals, shifters) of time and place such as “now,”
“here,” “lately,” “yesterday,” etc. relating the narrated events to a
present speaker and his embodied space-time position. Another major
element is address to the inscribed narratee, such as the famous “Dear
reader,” consisting of questions and admonitions and providing the
speaking voice with immediacy, projecting an ongoing communicative
exchange (telling) in addition to what is being narrated (told). Such ad­
dress is part of the rhetorical strategy employed by the narrator, and
embodies his/her communicative intentions. Equally important is the
use of subjective semantics, expressing the narrating instance’s atti­
tudes and reactions to the narrated events, which both adds a strong
personal element and functions as part of the teller’s rhetorical strategy
vis-à-vis the addressee. A final individuating feature is a personal style
of narration, indicative of a particular mind style.

3.2.3 Narration-oriented Utterances

Narratorial comments are focused on the narrated, while the linguistic
features listed above may be indicative of the narrated or the narration.
The fullest systematic picture of elements in the communicative sit-
uation (narration) which help characterize the narrator can be provided
by using Jakobson’s model of verbal communication (1960), five of
whose six functions are concerned with enunciation. The expressive
function is concerned with the speaker’s self-reference, self-character­
ization, and expression of emotions and attitudes. The conative or ap­
pellative functions may create the illusion of face-to-face communica­
tion where the addressee is urged to listen, understand, sympathize,
etc., not only with respect to the narrated, but also regarding the narra-
tor and his current activity. Metalinguistic references to the medium
employed (oral or written) and its limitations again highlight the nar­
rator’s present act of telling, and so do discussions of the appropriate­
ness and potentialities of the type of discourse selected (letter, diary,
confession, report). And finally, there are of course references to the
current narrating activity and its linguistic embodiment as it is being
produced.
As Prince (1982) and Nünning (1989) have noted, the greater the
number of signs of the narration compared to those of the narrated, the
more marked the narrator and his activity become. An extreme example
358 Narrator

is provided by postmodern narratives where hardly any story gets told,

since most of the text is concerned with the process of telling and its
difficulties and with the figure of the teller and his struggle to tell
(→ metanarration and metafiction). Finally, when the telling process is
foregrounded and presented as durative (taking days, months or years),
it is possible to draw conclusions not only with respect to some of the
narrator’s mental and physical traits, but also as regards possible
changes to these features in the course of the narration.

3.3 Major Aspects of a Narrator’s Image

Once a certain amount of individuating information about the narrator

has been garnered from the textual data listed above, one could attempt
to draw an image of this narrator as a human or human-like figure.
Now in principle any physical, mental or behavioral aspect of the nar­
rator could enter such a picture, but as regards those aspects most
closely tied to the defining teller role, the following have been suggest-
ed by various narratologists: degree and kind(s) of knowledge pos­
sessed; reliability; relation to various components of the speech act per­
formed; articulateness; attitude towards the narrated (straightforward,
ironic, sympathetic, etc.); projected teller role.

3.3.1 Knowledge
Once a global narrator has been identified in a discourse, all informa­
tion about the narrated domain, including characters’ direct discourse,
originates with that narrator. Now the knowledge a narrator may have
about any of the characters may be restricted to what can be garnered
from sense impressions, or it may include direct access to their minds,
something not possible outside fiction (® focalization). Even if re-
stricted to external data, a narrator may know more, the same as or less
than one or more of his characters, and he may also withhold informa­
tion from his addressee. One egregious example is Agatha Christie’s
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, where the narrator withholds the crucial
information that he himself is the murderer. Some, but by no means all,
anonymous narrating voices telling their story in the third-person past
tense are endowed with omniscience: “Familiarity, in principle, with
the characters’ innermost thought and feelings; knowledge of past, pre-
sent and future; presence in locations where characters are supposed to
be unaccompanied […]; and the knowledge of what happened in sever­
al places at the same time” (Rimmon-Kenan [1983] 2003: 96). And
such panoramic or Olympian knowledge can be fully authoritative, not
open to any challenge or enquiry. This is the maximal degree and kind
 Narrator 359

of knowledge any narrator can possess, and the possibility of any nar­
rating instance possessing such knowledge is the most basic con­
stitutive convention of all fiction writing. As soon as the narrator be­
comes personalized, knowledge claims begin to be restricted in scope
and kind to the humanly possible (unless the speaker is a supernatural
entity) and are open to modalization (“it seems,” “probably,” “as far as
can be known”) and thus the challenge of limited epistemic authority.
Because of their rhetorical needs, authors sometimes endow personal­
ized narrators with intermittent omniscience. The highly personalized
narrator of Proust’s first-person novel À la Recherche du temps perdu
can thus on occasion report with certainty about what another person
thought or what happened when someone was all by himself.

3.3.2 Reliability
Personalized narrators, and only personalized ones, may on occasion be
deemed by the reader as unreliable, meaning that the validity of some
or even all claims made by them is low or non-existent, that these
claims need consequently to be rejected and, if possible, replaced by
more valid, reader-formulated ones regarding the given topic. (Notice,
though, that if the narrator is cast in the role not of a reporter of facts
but of an inventor of tales, unreliability is inapplicable [Walton 1990:
374–75].) Following Phelan & Martin (1999), one can distinguish three
axes of unreliability: facts and events of the narrated domain; the inter­
pretation of such facts (i.e. supplied inferences, explanations or motiva­
tions); moral, practical, aesthetic, etc. judgments and evaluations of
these facts. While the first two kinds of reliability are epistemic, the
third is clearly axiological and normative. Moreover, unreliability of
factual claims is the most radical, since it may prevent us from figuring
out what the narrative world was “really” like. A narrator may himself
alter the reliability of any of his claims by citing lack of information or
inability on his part to fathom things. There are numerous indicators of
narratorial factual unreliability (cf. D’hoker & Martens eds. 2008) in­
cluding paratextual and intertextual elements such as title (Diary of a
Madman) or a narrator figure falling clearly under a codified unreliable
literary type (picaro, scoundrel). In multiple narrator texts (3.4), con­
flicts between the reports on the same events by different narrators in­
dicate that at least one of them is unreliable. In realistic literature, a
major clash between our world knowledge (extra-textual information)
and claims made by the narrator may also serve as such an indicator
(Hansen 2007). Inner-textual indicators of factual unreliability are in­
consistency and incongruity between claims made by the narrator re­
garding the same events, while illogicality, invalid or non-sequitur in­
360 Narrator

ferences as well as explanations and generalizations lacking any evi-

dence are grounds for deeming narratorial interpretations of fact unreli­
able. Strong conflict with the moral or aesthetic norms held by the
reader are grounds for rejecting narratorial judgments. In the factual
and interpretative cases, one also assumes that the events of the nar­
rated domain are in and by themselves amenable to a consistent de­
scription and that valid generalizations and explanations of this domain
are possible. Narratorial unreliability is ultimately a readerly computa­
tional hypothesis adopted in order to explain the origin of inconsisten­
cies and incongruities in the narrated world, a crucial point first made
by Yacobi (1981). To claim that the narration of a given story is unreli­
able is to assume the existence of a personalized mediator with human-
like cognitive and sensory capabilities whose erroneous or aberrant
mind can serve as the source of all textual incongruities with respect to
the narrated domain (Marcus 2007).
Once we are ready to psychologize the narrator, we could seek for
mental explanations for the unreliability of some or all of his claims.
Depending on the particular text, such grounds could be the narrator’s
lack of knowledge or experience, mental deficiencies ranging from lim­
ited intelligence to insanity or drug-induced hallucinations, self-decep­
tion (in cases of autobiographical narration), a particular mental dispo-
sition (the chronic liar), and a deliberate deceptive strategy. Creating a
narrator figure whom readers will deem unreliable redirects attention
from the told to the telling and the teller, from what is known and eval­
uated to the circumstances and activities of informing and judging, and
to the person failing to perform them properly.

3.3.3 Relation to the Narrative Act

From the speech act of narration one can construct an image of its per­
former along three major axes: status, involving the speaker’s relation
to his speaking activity; contact, involving the speaker-audience rela­
tion; and stance, involving the relation between the speaker and the
topic of his discourse. Such is the key thesis of Lanser (1981), the most
comprehensive account to date of the narrator in terms of speech act
theory. Status covers, among other things, social identity, extent of
knowledge, presentation of the told as report or invention, and “mime-
tic authority” encompassing sincerity and honesty or their absence,
trustworthiness (both intellectual and moral), and competence or skill
at telling. Contact includes the teller’s attitude towards his inscribed
addressee: formality to intimacy, deference to contempt; self-reference
and direct address or the absence of both; the teller’s attitude towards
his activity including self-confidence or hesitancy, consciousness of
 Narrator 361

this activity of telling and reference to it or lack of both. Stance is a

more heterogeneous category, but most important probably is the nar­
rator’s relation to his characters: adopting or not adopting their lan­
guage and/or spatio-temporal perspective and/or values (Lanser 1981:
224). Lanser’s pragmatics of narration follows in the footsteps of clas­
sical rhetoric where a speaker is regarded as a human subject with vari­
ous emotions (pathos), values (ethos) and intentions and who, through
the organization and manner of delivery of his discourse, seeks to mold
in particular ways the attitudes, emotions and judgments of his ad-
dressees (Grall 2007: 253–54).

3.3.4 Articulateness
Under this heading is understood the manner of telling, especially those
stylistic choices that help characterize the speaker’s discourse and, by
metonymic transfer, the speaker’s mind as sophisticated, abstract, com­
plex and rational or their opposite, finely nuanced or simplistic, emo­
tional and immediate or rational and distanced, and so on. While such
qualifications cannot be strictly defined in any systematic and exhaus-
tive manner, they form an important part of our personality sketch of
the narrator as perceiver, chronicler and analyst of the narrated world.
Our corresponding judgment of him as intelligent and perceptive or not
will have a decisive influence on our assessment of his credibility and
ultimately on how much of what he claims about the narrated domain
we are ready to accept.

3.3.5 Attitude to the Narrated

Equally incapable of formal definition and failsafe determination, yet
every bit as important, is the narrator’s attitude towards the told, as
manifested in the way characters and events are represented. An open-
ended list of qualifiers would include neutral vs. judgmental, sympa-
thetic vs. detached, involved vs. distanced, cynical, sentimental, emo­
tionally charged, curious, amused, bewildered, and so on. The relation
between the tone or manner of telling and its subject matter can itself
serve as the basis for second-order characterization of the speaker.
Speaking in a cold, distanced manner about an atrocity may lead us to
characterize the speaker as heartless or as doing his best to hide his
emotions, depending on the context (Margolin 1986). The drawing of
such inferences is not an exact science, for it depends on the specific
inner-textual contexts as well as on the reader’s cultural context; even
so, such inferencing plays an important role in any portrait of the nar­
rator drawn by the reader.
362 Narrator

3.3.6 Projected Teller Role

The last key aspect of the narrator’s image is his/her textually projected
role. Is the narrator presented as a reporter (chronicler, biographer, his­
torian, eye witness) who vouches for the truth of his assertions regard­
ing the narrated? Or as an editor or publisher transmitting and vouching
for the prior existence and/or authenticity of the documents (letters, di­
aries) he is presenting (though not necessarily for the veracity of the
claims made in them)? Or as an author-fabricator, a storyteller engaged
in the invention of stories, perhaps with a playful attitude? Or maybe as
an oral teller, as in the skaz tradition, presenting a story to a live audi­
ence with a focus on the performative or transmissive aspect, on oral
address and unmediated audience response? (For the underlying func­
tions, see Ryan 2001; for the key properties of the narrator in his teller
role, see Booth 1961 and Petersen 1993.)

3.4 Plurivocal and Multi-level Narration

Some narratives do not have a general or global narrator, so that the

events on the narrated level are related by numerous independent par­
tial narrators, neither of whom refers to the discourse of the others,
thus creating “narrative parataxis” (Coste 1989: 173). Now these par­
tial narrators need not be participants in the narrated events, as when
three contemporary historians tell the story of Napoleon’s defeat in
Russia. Furthermore, each of them may narrate a different phase of the
total action sequence, a pattern labeled “narrative relay” (Coste 1989:
173), or the same events may be covered by all of them in converging
or diverging ways. In fictional narratives, one encounters both patterns,
but with the difference that the narrators are normally also participants
in the events they narrate. Since each character-narrator possesses his
own perspective or “take” on the events, the net result is multi-per­
spectival narration where there exist two or more narrating instances
who portray the same events in different ways, each from his own
standpoint (Nünning 2001: 18). An epistolary novel consisting entirely
of correspondence between two or more persons is a plurivocal narra­
tion in which each letter writer reports on and discusses events con­
cerning himself, his addressee or some third party. An epistolary novel
with a framing editor’s discourse turns this editor into the global nar­
rator, since all the embedded letters are basically quoted by him, the
text as a whole constituting a two-level narrative.
In general, a narrative can comprise several hierarchically ordered
levels of narration, each with its own narrator. In such cases, the
primary narrator is the one who introduces or quotes all the others,
 Narrator 363

without himself being introduced by any of them; the secondary narra-

tor is introduced or quoted by the first and introduces in his turn all
lower-level narrators, and so on. This story-within-a-story phenomenon
has been described by Nelles (2005: 134) as a “structure by which a
character in a narrative text becomes the narrator of a second narrative
text framed by the first one,” i.e. where one narrator’s discourse em­
beds that of another at a subordinate level. While the primary narrator
may remain a disembodied voice, all lower-level narrators are charac­
ters with respect to the primary one and must therefore be individuated
to some degree with respect to verbal, mental, behavioral and physical
features. Embedded narrators (® narrative levels), too, can function
either as reporters, in which case issues of reliability are paramount, or
as storytellers, where their skill at story telling and its impact on their
destiny are key (Walton 1990: 369–72).

3.5 Narrators and Characters

When a narrator employs tokens of “I” and “you” in his discourse,

these tokens automatically refer to him in his current speaker role and
to his inscribed addressee as participants in the ongoing communicative
transaction. But these tokens may also refer to speaker and addressee
as entities existing beyond the sphere of narration as objects of telling
(=characters, narrative agents) in the narrated sphere. And as → char­
acters, they may be located at points in space and time beyond the nar­
ration’s here and now. Insofar as narrators have themselves as narrative
agents, they are engaged in producing a first-person narrative, whereas
if it is their addressees who act as narrative agents, a second-person
narrative is being produced. If the entities referred to in the narrator’s
discourse are not part of the current communicative situation, then a
third-person narrative is produced. (Note that it is quite possible to
have a third-person narrative in which the speaker and the addressee in
their communicative roles are quite prominent.) Put differently, the ref­
erents of first- and second-person narratives participate in both story
and discourse systems and those of third-person narratives in the story
system only. Using the narrated system as our point of departure, the
main distinction is between narratives in which the narrator also parti­
cipates in the narrated events (first-person narrative) and those in
which he does not (second- and third-person narratives).
Several unusual forms of narration merit special attention with re­
gard to the narrator-character relation. One is the impersonal “one”
form where the pronoun can designate anyone and everybody who is or
would be in the situation portrayed, including the narrator himself. But
364 Narrator

this particular pronoun endows narration with a depersonalized aura.

The “you” form automatically picks out the inscribed addressee and
can pick out any reader who is ready to put himself imaginatively in
this addressee’s situation. But what if the narrator’s claims are about a
“you” in a separate narrated sphere, possibly also distinct in space and
time from the narrational sphere? Why tell the addressee his own life
story? And how possible is it for a personalized narrator to have access
to this “you’s” interiority? No one motivation is possible, only a series
of local context-dependent ones (Fludernik ed. 1994). “We”-narrative
concerning not speaker and addressee, but rather the speaker and
other(s) in a distinct narrated sphere, is especially tricky. “We” is al­
ways I+other(s). So is it the whole group speaking in unison, like the
chorus in Greek tragedy, or one speaker only? And if this speaker is
one, is he an authorized spokesperson for the group? “We”-narratives
may serve as tools for constructing a group’s sense of cohesion and
identity, but mental access by the we-narrator is necessarily curtailed.
Since we=I+other(s), whenever a text using a first-person plural pro­
noun seeks to depict the thoughts of other(s) beyond the speaker, it ne­
cessarily straddles the line between first- and third-person narration: a
character discloses that which can only be known by an external, im­
personal intelligence, that is, an omniscient narrative voice. Such nar­
ratives are thus simultaneously first- and third-person discourses, tran­
scending this basic narratological divide (Richardson 2006: 60).
When speaking about his own discourse, the narrator normally ad­
opts his own current epistemic and evaluative perspective, although he
can adopt the presumed perspective of his inscribed addressee, as in:
“Is it ever boring, listening to you.” When making claims about the nar­
rated domain, the narrator can engage his own perspective, but alterna-
tively he may take on the perspective of a character, speaking “[a]s
though he himself were […] in the epistemological position he attrib­
utes to a character, reporting what he takes this character to know”
(Walton 1990: 379). In the case of the autodiegetic (=autobiographical)
narrator, the character whose epistemological position he adopts may
be himself at a different time, usually in the past, but possibly also a
projected future version of himself. In his study of Dostoevskij’s poet­
ics, Baxtin (1929) showed the myriad ways in which a character’s per­
spective can be incorporated into the narrator’s discourse, ranging from
harmony up to sharp internal dissonance and parodic inversion. Free
indirect discourse, one of the hallmarks of fiction writing, is a linguis-
tic form combining the narrator’s deictic position and the character’s
idiom and semantics. Finally, a narrator can speak of himself qua nar­
rative agent as of another, that is, in the second or third person (e.g.
 Narrator 365

Caesar in De bello gallico). The reasons for such a deictic shift are nu­
merous and local, but the transfer can never encompass the whole text;
otherwise, it will not be identifiable.

3.6 Narrator and Author

The issue in the context of fiction writing is the relation between the
textually inscribed originator of the narrative discourse and the actual
person(s) who has (have) composed or written the text. Both textual
features and the cultural codes of reading play a role here. When the
textually inscribed narrator is individuated in terms of proper name and
key attributes (age, sex, location) which are markedly different from
the author’s, we tend to say that the author is the mere producer of the
words or sentences on the page which are turned into propositions and
utterances, claims and reports once they are ascribed to the textually in­
scribed speaker. By producing the words on the page, the author has
given rise in such cases to a substitutionary speaker who performs the
macro speech act of reporting and who is solely responsible for all
claims, specific and general, made in his report (on this issue, Ryan
1981; Martínez-Bonati 1996). The same named and individuated teller
may even serve as the narrator on the highest intradiegetic level in sev­
eral works by the same author (Conrad’s Marlow, Hemingway’s Nick
Adams).
What do we do, however, if the highest textual speaker position is
occupied by a wholly non-individuated narrator, an anonymous voice?
Most contemporary theories of narrative assume a logical necessity of
positing a narrating voice distinct from the author, even in cases of an
effaced narrator, since only such a voice could proclaim as true the nar­
rative propositions contained in the text. But there have always been
dissenting voices. Hamburger (1957), for example, has argued that one
can meaningfully speak of a narrator figure only in first-person narra-
tives, while in all other cases the narrator is a mere metonymy for a
narrative textual function. Banfield (1982) has argued on linguistic
grounds that the notion of narrator is meaningful only in cases of overt,
foregrounded narration, such as the skaz. And finally, Walsh (1997:
507, 511) has claimed that in the absence of a marked narrator, it is the
real author who makes the claims, both specific and general, contained
in the text, but in a ludic (pretense) mode.
A number of further distinctions should be made here. Claims by an
anonymous narrating voice involving mental access to others serve as
indicators that this is a work of fiction and also as a good reason not to
identify this voice with the author, but treat it instead as a substitution­
366 Narrator

ary speaker. However, if the claims to knowledge made by this voice

are realistically possible, then it is only paratextual and contextual in­
dicators that can serve as grounds for positing a substitutionary textual
speaker. Suppose now an extreme case with no unequivocal paratextual
or contextual indicators and realistically possible kinds of claims only.
Here we are faced with a possible quandary: historical report or the
artistic imitation of such a report? Hildesheimer’s Marbot is a case in
point. Even if we are inclined to posit an anonymous inner-textual nar­
rator as the one responsible for all specific claims made in the text,
opinions vary as regards the general claims and the moral norms origin­
ating with this voice: are they to be applied to the actual world? Do
they reflect the biographical author’s views? Logical consistency and
established cultural conventions requiring that we preserve the unity of
the text dictate that we apply these claims to the storyworld only and
not worry about the actual author’s views. Yet in the case of an effaced
narrator, the temptation to relate the claims to actual world and actual
author is almost irresistible, as evidenced by endless literary interpreta­
tions.
The individuated narrator and the anonymous voice are comple-
mented by the individuated narrator figure showing close resemblance
to the author, as when the narrator is portrayed as a professional writer
and sometimes even bears the author’s name. The distinctions made
earlier apply in this case too, and the best approach seems to treat this
narrator figure as the author’s counterpart in the fictional sphere cre­
ated by the text.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) The image of the textual speaker as constructed in the context of

fiction writing should be examined in its relation to the projected
speaker image in lyrical poetry (persona) and in non-fictional narra-
tives. (b) It is assumed here that the diarist and letter writer are narra-
tors, yet Chatman (1978) denies this: is it because he implicitly identi­
fies narrator with global narrator? (c) Can narrators be focalizers, and
if so, when and to what extent? This problem has not been touched
upon here, yet is the subject of extensive debate in the critical litera-
ture. (d) This entry makes no use of the notion of ® implied author,
which the present writer finds redundant in a communication-based
model. However, the implied author appears in almost every discussion
of the narrator. Should this be the case? (e) Narrator unreliability as re­
gards judgments and evaluations has been treated here entirely as a
matter of readers’ criteria, unlike factual unreliability, for which there
 Narrator 367

are objective inner-textual indicators. Why has this view emerged only
recently, and is the resistance to it associated with the implied author
postulate?

5 Bibliography

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368 Narrator

Margolin, Uri (1986). “The Doer and the Deed.” Poetics Today 7, 206–25.
– (1986/87). “Dispersing/Voiding the Subject.” Texte 5/6, 181–210.
– (1991). “Reference, Coreference, Referring, and the Dual Structure of Literary Nar­
rative.” Poetics Today 12, 517–42.
Martínez-Bonati, Félix (1996). “On Fictional Discourse.” C.-A. Mihailescu & W.
Hamarneh (eds). Fiction Updated. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 65–75.
Nelles, William (2005). “Embedding.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia
of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 134–35.
Nünning, Ansgar (1989). Grundzüge eines kommunikationstheoretischen Modells der
erzählerischen Vermittlung. Trier: WVT.
– (2001). “Mimesis des Erzählens.” J. Helbig (ed). Erzählen und Erzähltheorie im
20. Jahrhundert. Heidelberg: Winter, 13–47.
Petersen, Jürgen H. (1993). Erzählsysteme. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Phelan, James & Mary Patricia Martin (1999). “The Lessons of Weymouth.” D. Her­
man (ed). Narratologies: New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis. Columbus: Ohio
State UP, 88–109.
Prince, Gerald (1982). Narratology: The Form and Function of Narrative. Berlin:
Mouton.
Richardson, Brian (2006). Unnatural Voices. Columbus: Ohio State UP.
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2003). Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics.
London: Methuen.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1981). “The Pragmatics of Personal and Impersonal Fiction.”
Poetics 10, 517–39.
– (2001). “The Narratorial Functions.” Narrative 9, 146–52.
Schmid, Wolf (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Spielhagen, Friedrich ([1883] 1967). Beiträge zur Theorie und Technik des Romans.
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Stanzel, Franz ([1955] 1971). Narrative Situations in the Novel: Tom Jones, Moby-
Dick, The Ambassadors, Ulysses. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Thomson-Jones, Katherine (2007). “The Literary Origins of the Cinematic Narrator.”
British Journal of Aesthetics 47, 76–95.
Walsh, Richard (1997). “Who is the Narrator?” Poetics Today 18, 495–513.
Walton, Kendall (1990). Mimesis as Make-believe. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Yacobi, Tamar (1981). “Fictional Reliability as a Communicative Problem.” Poetics
Today 2.2, 113–26.

5.2 Further Reading

Alward, Peter (2007). “For the Ubiquity of Nonactual Fact-Telling Narrators.” Journal
of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65, 401–04.
Blödorn, Andreas, et al. eds. (2006). Stimme(n) in Texten: Narratologische Positions­
bestimmungen. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Chatman, Seymour (1990). Coming to Terms. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
Herman, Luc & Bart Vervaeck ([2001] 2005). Handbook of Narrative Analysis. Lin­
coln: U of Nebraska P.
 Narrator 369

Marcus, Amit (2008). “A Contextual View of Narrative Fiction in the First Person
Plural.” Narrative 16, 46–64.
Nünning, Ansgar, ed. (1998). Unreliable Narration. Trier: WVT.
Patron, Sylvie (2009). Le Narrateur. Introduction à la théorie du récit. Paris: Armand
Colin.
Phelan, James (2001). “Why Narrators Can be Focalizers—and Why it Matters.” W.
van Peer & S. Chatman (eds). New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective. Albany:
State U of New York P, 51–64.
Tacca, Oscar (1985). Voces de la novela. Madrid: Gredos.
 Performativity
Ute Berns

1 Definition

The terms “performativity” and “performance” derive from the verb “to
perform.” They denote the capacity to execute an action, to carry some­
thing out actually and thoroughly, as well as to do according to pre­
scribed ritual. “To perform” may also be used in the sense of “to per­
form an artistic work,” i.e. to act in a play, to play an instrument, to
sing or dance. In narratology, performativity denotes modes of present­
ing or evoking action. A performance, i.e. the embodied live presenta­
tion of events in the co-presence of an audience at a specific place and
time, is performative in the narrow sense: performativity I. Here the
audience experiences the actors and the action directly, i.e. visually and
acoustically at a minimum. Performance can take place in the real
world (as in a wedding ceremony or a court trial) or it can depict fic­
tional events (as in a theater performance). Verbal or visual scripts can
prepare the performance in playtexts and stage directions, film scripts
and choreographic sketches. These may also detail gestures, facial ex­
pressions and voice. In a wider sense, the term performativity can also
be applied to non-corporeal presentations, e.g. in written narratives:
performativity II. Here performativity refers to the imitation or illusion
of a performance. In this case, readers reconstruct the performance di­
mension in their minds―the performance is imagined.
In systematic terms, actions can be conveyed on two different levels
of the presentational process. They can be located, first, on the level of
histoire (the story that is presented). This aspect of performativity is
called “performativity I.i or II.i.” Here the spectator’s or reader’s atten­
tion is directed to the actions taking place in the story, actions that can
be conveyed with varying degrees of immediacy. Secondly, the actions
can be located on the level of the narration (the narrator’s act of medi­
ation). This is called “performativity I.ii or II.ii.” In this case, the
reader’s or spectator’s attention is directed to the act of narration itself,
or to the actions of the narrator, which can be foregrounded to a greater
or lesser degree. When the performativity of the act of narration is con­
371 Performativity

sidered in a wider pragmatic and cultural context, aspects of the empi-

rical author (e.g. gender) can also become pertinent to the reception
and appreciation of narrative as a form of cultural agency.

2 Explication

Performativity and performance are interdisciplinary concepts that

have emerged in linguistics and the philosophy of language, in per­
formance, theater and literary studies, as well as in ethnology, soci­
ology and cultural studies (Loxley 2007). Although the terms “per­
formative,” “performance” and “performativity” are frequently referred
to across a broad range of narratological investigations, they have re­
ceived no systematic treatment in this field to date. Therefore, this ar-
ticle will aim above all to provide a systematic account of how the
concept of performativity currently pertains to narratology.
Performativity I refers to the performance of a narrative, i.e. to its
fully embodied, live enactment in front of an audience in a real world
context or on stage. The audience, co-present with the presenters or
actors, can experience this performance visually (as in a pantomime) or
both visually and acoustically (as in most theatrical, musical and real-
world performances); there may be physical contact between audience
and presenters, and some performances even affect the audience’s ol­
factory sense. Performativity II refers to the → illusion of a perform­
ance created in non-corporeal presentations of a narrative, e.g. in writ­
ing, cartoons or film. These presentations of narratives evoke a per­
formance in the mind of the reader or spectator.
In narrative, performativity can be located on two levels: the level
of the story, or histoire (i); the level of the act of narration or narrator’s
action (ii). Performativity I.i refers to the level of histoire (the story
that is presented) in the performance, i.e. in the fully embodied enact­
ment of a narrative. The spectator of the performance perceives the un­
folding of a story in a scenic transmission, bodily presented by one or
more actors. Performativity II.i refers to the level of histoire (the story
that is presented) in the non-corporeal presentation of actions not medi­
ated by a narrator (→ mediacy and narrative mediation). In the strictest
sense, this denotes direct speech only, as in dramatic writing, dialogue
quoted verbatim, etc. (→ speech representation). Yet performativity
can also refer to the level of the narrator’s agency or act of narration
(ii). In the case of performativity I.ii, the spectator of a performance
perceives an act of narration taking place. Here the performance con­
sists in the presentation of a story by a narrator or presenter, e.g. in the
figure of the rhapsodist vis-à-vis an audience. The story is mediated in
 Performativity 372

a plurimedial manner by a single narrator/presenter. His or her voice,

body or actions rather than those of individually embodied persons or
characters form the core of the performance, which allows for different
degrees of impersonation. Performativity II.ii (e.g. in written narra-
tives) refers to the narrator’s self-thematizations, to his or her explicit
comments on the story or the act of narration and to addresses to the
reader (→ metanarration and metafiction).
The two levels of performativity (histoire [i] and act of narration
[ii]) thus introduce a relation of partial congruity between live perform­
ances and evocations of the illusion of performativity in purely verbal
narrative―a congruity that can also be investigated in a historical per­
spective (→ conversational narration/oral narration). The performativi-
ty of the illusion of dramatic presentation in written narrative corre-
sponds to or appears to be modeled on scenic performances. Likewise
the performativity of the act of presentation or narration, especially in
feigned orality or skaz narration, corresponds to or appears to be mod-
eled on performances by an embodied storyteller.
Understood as the capacity to generate in the reader’s mind the no­
tion of a performance, performativity on both levels (histoire and act of
presentation) can be graded according to a scale of greater or lesser
performativity. Direct presentation on the story level (II.i) can be more
or less absolute (e.g. mental processes can be presented as an interior
monologue or as free indirect speech). Analogously, mediation of the
act of narration on the level of the narration (II.ii) can be either more
obvious or less so (overt vs. covert). When performativity evokes ac­
tion in the mind of the reader or viewer, the demands it makes on the
audience’s imagination vary according to the media in which that ac­
tion is presented. Arguably, the performativity of films and cartoons,
thanks to the immediacy of the imagined actions to which they give
rise, is greater than that of purely verbal narratives, except when mental
actions such as thoughts are presented (→ narration in various media).
In the case of both performativity I.ii and II.ii, the actual or implied
act of narration can itself present a story or “story of narration”
(Erzählgeschichte, Schmid 2005). This story tells of changes in the
situation, attitude or behavior of the narrator. Some critics here also ap­
ply the term “mimesis” when they speak of the “mimesis of story-
telling” (Mimesis des Erzählens, Nünning 2001), or when they distin­
guish between “process mimesis” and “product mimesis” (Hutcheon
1984: 36–47). On this level, the act of narration is thematized in a self-
reflexive manner. Performative in this sense is often used synony-
mously with self-conscious and reflexive or with metanarrative and
metafictional.
373 Performativity

The two basic levels of performativity can also be re-conceptualized

in speech act terminology that describes utterances as a mode of action.
According to the philosopher Austin (1962), utterances not only have a
propositional content―they do not only say something―but they do
something as well, provided that they fulfill specific conventions.
Searle (1969) further formalizes the felicity conditions of utterances
while foregrounding the successful communication of the speaker’s in­
tention against a complex and contingent background. In the context of
narratology, the performativity of speech acts is relevant on two levels.
First, speech acts directly precipitate action on the story-level (prom­
ises, threats, wooing, etc), whether in court-rooms or dramatic dialogue
(Pfister [1977] 1993: 118–19). Second, the narrator deploys speech
acts (to identify and report, generalize and promise, etc.) on the level of
narration (Chatman 1978: 161–66). On this level, whole narratives can
also be treated as metaphorical “utterances” or “complex speech acts”
(e.g. Pratt 1977; Todorov 1978); in this perspective, a novel, too, is a
speech act. Analyses of the act of narration in this sense tend to em­
phasize the narrative’s performativity in a larger pragmatic and cultural
context, possibly taking account of the empirical author or of paratex­
tual matter and stressing the narrative act as a mode of cultural agency
that engages with cultural conventions and shapes collective identities.
Since speech act theory remains language-based, it applies only to
verbal narratives. Yet other media, e.g. painting or film, rely on visual
or on visual and acoustic performativity, which may involve pointer or
narrator figures. The specific demand performativity makes on the
spectator’s imagination thus varies according to the medium.
Though used primarily to denote the co-presence and live inter-
action between the presenter(s) of a narrative and the audience, the
notion of performance is sometimes deployed in a looser sense. With a
view to media in which the narrative is encountered as already given
and complete, as in a novel, film or painting, the term performance is
also used to describe the process of realization or mental performance
of the recipient. In this case, the term becomes synonymous with the
individual reading or viewing process.

3 Concepts and their Study

3.1 Performativity I: Corporeal Presentation of Action

When performativity is realized in a performance―performativity

I―actions are presented in all their plurimedial dimensions (McAuley
 Performativity 374

2007). Nevertheless, the intensity with which they are experienced may
vary. The spatial proximity between performance and audience as well
as the possible manipulation of light and sound bear on this experience.
The impact of styles of acting or ritualized behavior within given con­
ventions of presenting and viewing may also enhance or lessen the im­
pact of performativity in a performance. Disciplines that study the per­
formativity of narratives in cultural or theatrical performances rarely
draw on narratology, although they do focus on the performativity of
narratives in a wider, communicational and context-sensitive frame­
work. Ethnographic and anthropological work (Turner 1982) investi-
gates the way in which a society performatively constructs, preserves
or changes its traditions, identity and cultural memory. Theater and
performance studies (Auslander ed. 2003) complement this research as
they analyze the processual nature and liminality of these performative
constructions, i.e. their capacity to dramatize moments of transition and
change. These studies emphasize the significance of material embodi­
ment and re-contextualization, paying attention to the impact of fore­
grounded theatricality, audience interaction and the transitoriness of
the performance (Fischer-Lichte 2004).
However, studies of oral narratives presented by a corporeal teller
tend to focus on performativity I.ii, i.e. on the level of the narrator’s
agency rather than on the story level, as they investigate how narratives
produce―in a performative and interactive manner―individual and
group identity on a pragmatic and cultural plane. Since Labov (1972),
research on oral narrative and face-to-face narration in linguistic dis­
course analysis and sociolinguistics has been concerned with specific
characteristics of the oral format. More recent investigations have be­
come increasingly sensitive to cultural contexts, analyzing how narra-
tive performances constitute or index individual, social and cultural
identities (Georgakopoulou 1997: 123–97), as well as roles, relation­
ships, stances and activities (→ identity and narration). Moreover,
some analyses of the provisional character of narratives-in-perform­
ance indicate that the act of narration, understood as a social, commu­
nicational event, acquires collaborative aspects. From an ethnological
perspective, Bauman (1986) looks at narrators in closely-knit commu-
nal settings and shows how the narrated events are shaped in the narra-
tive event. And the sociolinguists Ochs & Capps (2001) analyze how
performances of provisional narratives negotiate the teller’s desire for
coherence and identity while acknowledging contradictory human ex­
periences in open collaborative forms of narration. This focus on oral
narratives as performative modes of embodied social communication
375 Performativity

and interaction has sparked interdisciplinary work which Herman

(1999: 219) describes as “socionarratological.”
Performances can be scripted as well as mediatized. Some aspects
of the performativity actualized in a performance may be scripted in a
play- or filmscript or in visual sketches or even in community-based
guidelines for the performance of ritual acts. In play- or filmscripts, nu­
merous aspects of the performance are encoded through deictic refer­
ences to the hic et nunc of the dramatic situation in the main text, but
also through stage directions detailing spaces, bodily movements, light
and sounds (Elam 1980; de Marinis 1978). Drawing on the work of
Elam, Fludernik has recently explored the implications of locating dis­
course either at the level of the playtext or at the level of the perform­
ance. She also suggests that we revise the general narrative communi-
cation model for all written narratives so that it includes performance
as an additional optional level (Fludernik 2008: 365). In lyrical poetry,
performativity can be traced in the visual layout (length of lines, stan­
zas) that serves to structure the oral performance of the poem as well as
in the foregrounded acoustic potential or “musicality” of the language
(Wolf 2003: 78) (→ narration in poetry and drama). However, per­
formances are not only prepared in various ways. They can also be re­
corded or mediatized. This again inflects the degree of their performa-
tivity in the new medium and involves modifications of meaning (Aus­
lander 1999).

3.2 Performativity II: Non-corporeal Presentation of Action

3.2.1 Performativity II.i: Histoire or Story

Performativity as performativity II is also manifest in non-corporeal
representations of action. The term performative in the wide sense of
dramatic or unmediated roughly coincides with the term “mimetic” as
opposed to “diegetic.” In book III of Plato’s Republic, Socrates speaks
of pure diegesis when the poet represents the action in his own voice
only. In the mixed mode of the epic, the poet combines his authorial
descriptions and comments with mimetic elements, i.e. direct speech
representing the characters’ speech. And when the poet completely ef­
faces his own voice and represents the action in the imitated voices of
the characters only, this is called pure mimesis, to be found in drama
(Plato 1997: 394c). Plato thus confines his notion of mimesis to the
level of histoire as specified by Genette and singles out drama as the
mimetic (or performative) genre par excellence. However, Plato (395c–
398b) attacks and devalues the mimetic mode for its corrupting effects
on a strictly ordered society. Aristotle (1995: 1448a, 20), too, distin­
 Performativity 376

guishes between pure narrative, mixed narrative and dialogue, and pure
dialogue. In contrast to Plato, however, Aristotle (1448b, 5–20) en­
dorses the mimetic mode specified by Plato on account of its strong im­
itative force, which, he argues, gives pleasure and is pedagogically
valuable. On this account, he lauds Homer’s epic writing for its gener­
ous use of the mimetic mode (1460a, 5–10).
The major classical authorities thus describe the dramatic genre as
performative because it presents the story in an unmediated or direct
manner. This description has been repeated throughout critical appre-
ciations of the genre, leading Pfister ([1977] 1993: 4) to draw attention
to the “absolute nature” or unmediated presentation as a necessary cri­
terion in his classic model of dramatic communication. Yet Pfister ad­
mits that unmediated or “absolute” presentation is an idealization, and
in fact research on forms of mediation to be found in drama has greatly
expanded (see below).
Performativity in the sense of direct or mimetic performativity can
also become a feature of narratives that are regarded as mediated such
as short stories or novels. In the 18th century, readers juxtaposed the
“dramatic illusion” (performativity II.i) attributed to Richardson’s nov­
els and the “epic” impact (performativity II.ii) ascribed to the work of
Fielding who foregrounds the narrator. In 19th-century definitions, nar­
rative realism had to be “dramatic,” “impersonal,” or “objective.” And
in the early 20th century, the mimetic mode of “showing” as opposed to
the diegetic mode of “telling” turns into a well-nigh obligatory and de­
fining characteristic of modernist writing and poetics. Henry James
([1909] 1986: 45–51) gives explicit priority to modes of immediacy
such as rendering the characters in their own voices or portraying the
events through their eyes and minds in order to achieve empathy and a
“scenic” impression of life. At about the same time, Lubbock ([1921]
1957: 200) attempted an extensive analysis of the methods of presenta­
tion involved in the creation of this illusion of an immediate encounter
with “life,” which “gives validity, gives direct force to a story.” Histo-
ricizing the modernist era’s normative aesthetics, Lodge (1996) sug­
gests that its adherence to a mimetic manner of representation has giv­
en way, in postmodernist fiction, to a preference for the mediated, die­
getic mode.
Without using the term, Booth and Genette both take a closer look
at the concept of performativity underlying these normative assump­
tions. Though opposing showing and telling, Booth points out that au­
thorial agency is not conveyed merely in addresses to the reader or in
comments and direct judgments, but also through the direct speech of
reliable characters, the ordering of the narrative discourse or through
377 Performativity

any shifting of the point of view. “Everything he [the author] shows

will serve to tell” ([1961] 1983: 29). Yet, as Genette points out, this
does not impair the performativity of “showing.” While drawing on
Booth, Genette (1972) nevertheless distinguishes the representation of
action and of speech. He argues that within the diegetic mode, mimetic
or direct speech does not represent speech at all, but rather repeats
speech or, in literary narrative, directly constitutes it: “narrative will ef­
face itself before the direct quotations where all representational func­
tion has been abolished, just as when a judicial orator interrupts his
discourse to allow the tribunal itself to examine an exhibit” ([1972]
1983: 5). Genette treats the phenomenon of performativity under the
heading of “mood” and “distance” (161–64), where he refers to the “il­
lusion of mimesis” (164) thus conveyed.
Other theorists pursue the question as to whether performativity can
be graded on the story level. In his early writing, Chatman (1978) dis­
tinguishes between “non-narrated stories” and stories deploying a cov­
ert or an overt narrator, arguing for the existence of conventions to the
effect that the narrator should be considered as absent. He claims that
conventions of non-narration hold for the epistolary novel, for gradable
possibilities of representing a character’s speech and thought, for the
neutral reporting of action, or for descriptions that seem to emerge
through a character’s internal → focalization (1978: 146–96; for a lin­
guistic construction of this argument, see Banfield 1982). Standard ex­
amples of narratives with an absent narrator are Hemingway’s “The
Killers” or some of Dorothy Parker’s stories containing only dialogue
and action not commented upon. Chatman later drops the concept of
the non-narrated narrative, arguing that every narrative is by definition
narrated or presented by either an agent or an instrument which need
not be human (1990: 115–16).
Whereas Chatman’s argument suggests that performativity, espe­
cially in the representation of speech, can be graded in a fairly straight­
forward way, Sternberg, focusing on speech, argues that the communi-
cative functions of reported discourse, such as e.g. the impression of
greater or lesser immediacy or liveness, cannot be correlated straight­
forwardly with specific linguistic features such as direct, free indirect,
or indirect speech. After all, the unmediated representation of untagged
direct dialogue in written narrative does not necessarily convey a great­
er degree of immediacy than reported dialogue with a narrator specify­
ing, for instance, the facial expressions and gestures accompanying the
utterances or the tone of the voices. Sternberg thus abandons graded
correlations of linguistic form and performative effect in favor of an
account of the full range of the communication. Its transposition into
 Performativity 378

written language always remains selective and implies choices; quoting

always involves mediation (1982: 145). This insight can be extended
from the representation of speech to that of visual detail (Chatman
1978: 28–31). Whereas written descriptions of characters (“a woman”)
and settings (“a room”) have to be “built from nothing,” cinematic de­
scriptions of characters or settings start with a plethora of detail which
the camera may reduce in many ways. As a consequence, there is al­
ways more than one approach to creating the illusion of immediacy,
and the conventions determining what counts as a successful achieve­
ment of this illusion may vary (Wolf 1993). The opposition of showing
and telling is particularly relevant to the discussion of film (→ narra­
tion in film), where language and camera may operate independently
from each other (Chatman 1990: 124–60).

3.2.2 Performativity II.ii: Narrator and Act of Narration

As far as discourse level or act of narration are concerned, the concept
of performativity II.ii refers to the narrator’s agency or the act of
presentation and to the pragmatic context of this act. The capacity at is­
sue thus inheres in all modes of the act or process of presenting the
story. Writing about Baudelaire and Sterne respectively, MacLean
(1988) and Pfister (2001) emphasize that the foregrounding of the act
of narration can feign a performance in which narrator and audience
are conceived as fully embodied, co-present and interactive. Moreover,
Schmid (2005: 268–70) argues that the act of narration implies both the
story narrated (die erzählte Geschichte) and the story of narration
(Erzählgeschichte). This “story of narration” usually remains a frag­
ment, but in some cases it offers a great many details and may even
take precedence over the story proper, as in Tristram Shandy. The per­
formativity that refers to the act of presenting includes forms of self-re­
flexivity such as metanarration and metafictionality that effectively
dramatize or foreground the act of narration. As Nünning and
Fludernik point out, the accumulation of a large number of metanarra-
tive comments results in a “deliberate meta-narrative act of celebration
of the act of narration” (Fludernik 1996: 275) or a “mimesis of narra­
tion” (Mimesis des Erzählens, Nünning, 2001).
The notion of the absolute nature of drama, as indicated above,
amounts to an idealization, since the act of presenting can be traced in
dramatic writing, too. The play within the play and other metatheatrical
devices in Hamlet, or the heightened intertextuality of Stoppard’s
Travesties direct our interest to the narrative act. Pfister discusses chor­
us, prologue and epilogue as narratorial devices along with Brecht’s
use of song and montage, his deployment of a presenter figure as well
379 Performativity

as his anti-illusionist approach to the theater apparatus ([1977] 1993:

69–84). Recent studies focus on onstage narrators in memory plays or
on narrative insets including the telling of anecdotes, jokes and dreams,
but they also thematize the narrator as an abstract structural agency.
Jahn (2001) even assimilates the concept of overt or covert narratorial
agency in plays to the narratorial agency we associate with the novel,
thus sketching a transgeneric perspective for drama and novel that is
further elaborated by Nünning & Sommer (2008) and Fludernik (2008).
All of this work strongly suggests that the performativity of drama is a
much more “mixed” affair than has previously been thought. Con­
versely, forms of poetry that display great immediacy of consciousness
or achieve scenic presentations in different voices do not square with
the notion of poetry as pure diegesis (Wolf 2003; Pfister 2005).
Performativity is at stake also when narrative discourse as a whole
is treated as a speech act, or when the attention shifts to the pragmatic
relations within which the narrative itself turns into an act. Pratt (1977:
2, 86) treats literature as a “speech context” in which the individual
work or speech act is deciphered according to “unspoken, culturally-
shared knowledge of the rules and conventions.” Incidentally, her
alignment of natural and literary language is diametrically opposed to
Austin’s and Searle’s position, notorious for describing what Searle
calls “fictional discourse” as “parasitic” on ordinary language (Austin
[1962] 1975: 22), or as a series of pretended, make-believe speech acts
(Searle 1969). Pratt (1977: 152–224) and later Todorov (1978) focus
on the performativity of genre conventions in particular. And in a his­
torical perspective, Petrey (1988) traces the specific conventions of the
“realist speech act” in 19th-century French novels, while Esterhammer
(2000) investigates the shape of the “Romantic performative” in Britain
and Germany. Taking Pratt’s considerations into a different theoretical
arena, Rudrum (2008) posits that the concept of → narrativity itself
should be de-essentialized and rethought as convention- and com­
munity-based performativity.
Iser (1972) and Kearns (1999) theorize the reader’s response in gen­
eral terms when they argue that literary narratives, by performing illo-
cutionary acts and implicatures, trigger interpretive choices in the act
of reading. Moreover, Iser ([1991] 1993: 281–96) also discusses the
narrative act or “fictionalizing acts” in an anthropological perspective.
He points out that the Aristotelian notion of mimesis already implies a
teleological thrust exceeding mere imitation, which is increasingly
complemented in the course of history by a performative dimension in
the process of reception. Here the concept of performativity seems to
combine the formalized features of performativity in speech act theory
 Performativity 380

with the contingent aspects of (mental) performances in the reader’s re­

lation to the text (→ reader).
Finally, a number of critics have explored how gender bears on the
performativity of the narrative act and its pragmatic relations. Lanser
(1981) draws on speech act concepts of performativity to reappraise the
gendered relation between author, narrator and point of view. She later
argues for a contextualist narratology that aims to investigate how
“texts, like bodies, perform sex, gender and sexuality” ([1999] 2004:
127). Page (2006: 94–142) complements this approach by insisting that
the performativity of gender in narratives possesses an ideological di­
mension that cannot be appreciated without attending to the specific
social functions of these narratives.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

As this brief survey has shown, the notion of performativity cuts across
a wide spectrum of fruitful research in narratology that calls for more
systematic investigation. Rather than aiming to replace the categories
that have served to label some of this research so far (“mimesis,” “aes­
thetic illusion,” “metanarrativity,” etc.), such investigations could fur­
ther explore the relations between them. For instance, this survey sug­
gests that the concept of performativity could serve as an ideal site for
studying the interrelation between the degree of narrative performativi-
ty in visual or verbal forms of presentation and the more or less de­
terminate visual and kinesthetic mental performance taking place in the
mind of the reader or spectator. How do different media or specific cul­
tural environments affect this interrelation? Furthermore, the survey in­
dicates that the concept of performativity and the two levels of narra-
tive to which it refers provide a distinct inroad into research on written
narratives. In this perspective, investigation into the textual illusion of
scenic presentation and the textual illusion of orality can be pursued as
accounts of complementary types of textual performativity. At the
same time, the capacity of speech acts to shape gendered as well as so­
cial or cultural identities (Butler 1997) seems to merit closer analysis in
written narratives, too.
Yet the concept of performativity also introduces a theoretical
query. In narratology, the notion of performativity is indebted both to
the concept of the speech act and to the concept of performance.
Speech act analysis, when restricted to verbal narratives, demands a
certain degree of idealized formalization, while the analysis of per­
formance deals with highly contingent and embodied interactions as
processes. The relation between these two points of reference and their
381 Performativity

integration into narratological research needs to be developed further.

Considering the fully embodied and specifically situated performance
of utterances, we must ask what precisely the abstractions of speech act
theory involve and how they shape narratological analysis drawing on
speech act theory. In any case, the study of performativity in narratol-
ogy supplements the analysis of performativity in narrative with the
analysis of the performativity of narratives. On this account, the narra­
tological study of performativity offers the potential of complementing
structural analysis of narrative with analysis of its communication sit-
uation that is culturally and historically specific.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Aristotle (1995). “Poetics.” The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford
Translation. Vol. 2. Ed. J. Barnes. Princeton: Princeton UP.
Auslander, Philip ([1999] 2005). Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. New
York: Routledge.
– ed. (2003). Performance: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. 4
vols. London: Routledge.
Austin, John ([1962] 1975). How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Banfield, Ann (1982). Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the
Language of Fiction. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bauman, Richard (1986). Story, Performance and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral
Narratives. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
Butler, Judith (1997). Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York:
Routledge.
Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
– (1990). Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca:
Cornell UP.
de Marinis, Marco ([1978] 1993). The Semiotics of Performance. Bloomington: Indi­
ana UP.
Elam, Keir ([1980] 1987). The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London: Methuen.
Esterhammer, Angela (2000). The Romantic Performative: Language and Action in
British and German Romanticism. Stanford: Stanford UP.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika (2004). Ästhetik des Performativen. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
– (2003). “Metanarrative and Metafictional Commentary: From Metadiscursivity to
Metanarration and Metafiction.” Poetica 35, 1–39.
– (2008). “Narrative and Drama.” J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa (eds). Theorizing
Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 355–83.
 Performativity 382

Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1983). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra (1997). Narrative Performances: A Study of Modern
Greek Storytelling. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Herman, David (1999). “Toward a Socionarratology: New Ways of Analyzing Natural-
Language Narratives.” D. H. (ed). Narratologies: New Perspectives. Columbus:
Ohio State UP, 218–46.
Hutcheon, Linda (1984). Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. New
York: Methuen.
Iser, Wolfgang ([1972] 1974). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in
Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
– ([1991] 1993). The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Jahn, Manfred (2001). “Narrative Voice and Agency in Drama: Aspects of a Narrato­
logy of Drama.” New Literary History 32, 659–79.
James, Henry ([1909] 1986). “Preface to the New York Edition.” H. J. The Ambassa-
dors. London: Penguin.
Kearns, Michael (1999). Rhetorical Narratology. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Ver­
nacular. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P.
Lanser, Susan Sniader (1981). The Narrative Act: Point of View in Prose Fiction.
Princeton: Princeton UP.
– ([1999] 2004). “Sexing Narratology: Toward a Gendered Poetics of Narrative
Voice.” M. Bal (ed). Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural
Studies. London: Routledge, vol. 3, 123–39.
Lodge, David (1996). “Mimesis and Diegesis in Modern Fiction.” M. J. Hoffman &
P. D. Murphy (eds). Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Durham: Duke UP, 348–
71.
Loxley, James (2007). Performativity. London: Routledge.
Lubbock, Percy ([1921] 1957). The Craft of Fiction. London: Viking.
MacLean, Marie (1988). Narrative as Performance: The Baudelairean Experiment.
London: Routledge.
McAuley, Gay (2007). “State of the Art: Performance Studies.” SemiotiX 10.
[http://www.semioticon.com/semiotix/semiotix10/sem-10-05.html]
Nünning, Ansgar (2001). “Mimesis des Erzählens: Prolegomena zu einer Wirkungsäs­
thetik, Typologie und Funktionsgeschichte des Akts des Erzählens und der Me­
tanarration.” J. Helbig (ed). Erzählen und Erzähltheorie im 20. Jahrhundert: Fest­
schrift für Wilhelm Füger. Heidelberg: Winter, 13–47.
– & Roy Sommer (2008). “Narrative and Drama.” J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa (eds).
Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 331–54.
Ochs, Elinor & Lisa Capps (2001). Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday
Storytelling. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Page, Ruth E. (2006). Literary and Linguistic Approaches to Feminist Narratology.
Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Petrey, Sandy (1988). Realism and Revolution: Balzac, Stendhal, Zola, and the Per­
formances of History. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
383 Performativity

Pfister, Manfred ([1977] 1993). The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Cambridge: Cam­
bridge UP.
– (2001). Laurence Sterne. Horndon: Northcote House.
– (2005) “‘As an unperfect actor on the stage’: Notes Towards a Definition of Per­
formance and Performativity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.” E. Müller-Zettelmann &
M. Rubik (eds). Theory Into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric. Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 207–28.
Plato (1997). “Republic.” Complete Works. Ed. J. M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Pratt, Mary Louise (1977). Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse. Bloom­
ington: Indiana UP.
Rudrum, David (2008). “Narrativity and Performativity. From Cervantes to Star Trek.”
J. Pier & J. Á. García Landa (eds). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 253–
76.
Schmid, Wolf (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Searle, John R. ([1969] 1995). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
– (1975). “The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse.” New Literary History 6, 319–
32.
Sternberg, Meir (1982). “Proteus in Quotation-Land: Mimesis and the Forms of Re-
ported Discourse.” Poetics Today 3, 107–56.
Todorov, Tzvetan ([1978] 1990). Genres in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Turner, Victor (1982). From Ritual to Theater: The Human Seriousness of Play. New
York: PAJ.
Wolf, Werner (2003). “The Lyric―An Elusive Genre: Problems of Definition and a
Proposal for Reconceptualization.” Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 28,
59–91.

5. 2 Further Reading
Butler, Judith (1990). “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phe­
nomenology and Feminist Theory.” S.-E. Case (ed). Performing Feminisms: Fem­
inist Critical Theory and Theater. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 270–83.
Felman, Shoshana ([1980] 2003). The Scandal of the Speaking Body: Don Juan with
J.L. Austin, or, Seduction in Two Languages. Stanford: Stanford UP.
Fishelov, David (1989). Metaphors of Genre: The Role of Analogies in Genre Theory.
University Park: Pennsylvania State UP.
Gaudreault, André ([1990] 2004). “Showing and Telling: Image and Word in Early
Cinema.” M. Bal (ed). Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultur­
al Studies. London: Routledge, vol. 4, 359–67.
Nünning, Ansgar (2004). “On Metanarrative: Towards a Definition, a Typology and an
Outline of the Functions of Metanarrative Commentary.” J. Pier (ed). The Dynam­
ics of Narrative Form. Berlin: de Gruyter, 11–57.
van Haesenbrouck, Karel, ed. (2004). Performance. Online-Journal Image & Narrative
No 9 www.imageandnarrrative/performance/performance.htm.
Wirth, Uwe, ed. (2002). Performanz: Zwischen Sprachphilosophie und Kulturwissen­
schaften. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
 Perspective/Point of View
Burkhard Niederhoff

1 Definition

Perspective in narrative may be defined as the way the representation

of the story is influenced by the position, personality and values of the
narrator, the characters and, possibly, other, more hypothetical entities
in the storyworld. The more common term in Anglo-American criti­
cism, which will be treated as equivalent here, is “point of view.”

2 Explication

In the visual arts, perspective refers to a method that presents a scene

as perceived from a “single fixed viewpoint” (Carter 1970: 840), cre-
ating the impression of three-dimensional depth on a two-dimensional
surface. In a painting of this sort, parallel lines converge as they recede
from the viewer; objects gain or lose in size depending on whether they
are near or far; and in the background, colors lose their intensity and
acquire a bluish tinge. That the concept of perspective can also be ap­
plied to language is made evident by the following sentence, assumed
to be spoken by a boy: “My father towered above me.” The man in
question need not be a giant; the impression of his great height might
simply result from the boy’s viewpoint. The example also shows that
the concept of perspective may be extended from vision in the literal
sense to vision in the figurative sense, i.e. to interpretation and evalua-
tion. Thus the verb “towered” suggests that the father is threatening the
boy. Again, this impression might not be shared by other observers, as
it might be an interpretation of the father’s body language by a son who
has a difficult relationship with his parent. Most narratologists use per­
spective in the broader sense that includes visual data although it is not
limited to such data.
The concept of perspective is especially pertinent to narrative. Nar­
ratives have at least one narrator and usually more than one character
and thus offer the possibility for a range of, and a change of, perspec-
tives. A narrator may tell the story from his own point of view, as in
385 Perspective/Point of View

the following example: “A long time ago, little Stephen Dedalus, an in­
habitant of Dublin, was eagerly listening to a story told to him by his
father.” But a narrator may also tell the story from the point of view of
a character, as is shown by Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man; the Joycean narrator adopts the perspective of little Stephen: “His
father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he
had a hairy face” ([1916] 1926: 7). The point of view of a small child is
indicated by the simple, repetitive syntax and by the periphrases
“glass” for monocle and “hairy face” for beard.
Perspective is a complex and controversial concept, as is attested by
the proliferation of rival metaphors such as “reflector” (James [1908]
1972: 247), → “focalization” (Genette 1972), “slant,” “filter,” and “in­
terest-focus” (Chatman 1990), or “window” (Jahn 1996; Fludernik
1996). One source of confusion and controversy, which is related to the
spatio-visual origin of the term, is the ambiguity of the attributes “ex­
ternal” and “internal,” pointed out by a number of scholars (e.g. Edmis­
ton 1991: 155) but ignored by many more. In narratology, these terms
are not used with reference to well-defined spaces (inside or outside a
box) but with reference to minds (inside or outside a character’s con­
sciousness). However, the boundaries of a mind are less easily deter-
mined than those of a box. A character’s consciousness can be direct-
ed inwards, as in meditation, but it can also be directed outwards, as in
perception. In the latter case, the “internal” perspective pulls us straight
back into the “external” world. A further difficulty is that the terms
may refer both to points from which the action is viewed and to re­
gions that are viewed from these points. Describing a point of view as
“external,” for example, suggests that we are viewing a character from
the outside, from a spatial and possibly from an emotional and ideolo­
gical distance. But this does not tell us how far our vision extends. In
the case of the so-called camera perspective, it is extremely limited: we
only learn what a newcomer to the scene might observe and thus have
no way of knowing what the character feels or thinks. In the case of so-
called omniscient narration, our vision is not limited at all. We have ac­
cess to the character’s thoughts and feelings, including subconscious
ones, as well as to every other conceivable region of the storyworld.
Thus it is important, in analyzing perspective, to indicate not only a
point or position from which the events are viewed, but also the kind of
mind located at this position and the kind of “privilege” (Booth [1961]
1983: 160–63) this mind enjoys, i.e. its access, or lack of such, to the
different regions of the storyworld.
A second reason why perspective is a difficult concept has been
pointed out by Lanser. “Unlike such textual elements as character, plot,
 Perspective/Point of View 386

or imagery, point of view is essentially a relationship rather than a con­

crete entity. As it tends to evade stabilization into the language of
‘things’, it has been difficult to grasp and codify” (1981: 13). Analyz­
ing an image in terms of perspective means analyzing it as a view, i.e.
as the result of a relation between a viewing subject and a viewed ob­
ject. Narratologists have occasionally succumbed to the temptation of
simplifying things by reducing the relation to one of the elements con­
nected by it.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 From James to Stanzel: Pre-Structuralist Typologies

Point of view is used in its technical sense, with reference to a narrative

method, as early as 1866 (Stang [1959] 1961: 107–11). The first sus­
tained discussion of the subject in English is to be found in the writings
of James. However, “point of view” in James usually refers to a
writer’s temperament and outlook on life (cf. Morrison 1961/62: 247–
48). When James discusses narrative method, he uses such related spa­
tio-visual metaphors as “centre (of consciousness),” “window,” “re­
flector,” or “mirror,” all of which refer to a character whose experience
governs the presentation of the story. James prefers this kind of
presentation to a first-person narrator ([1908] 1972: 249), and he also
advocates consistency in point of view, deploring his own deviation
from such consistency in one of his tales as a “lapse from artistic dig­
nity” ([1908] 1972: 244).
James’s disciple Lubbock (1921) systematized the master’s critical
observations into a coherent theory organized around an opposition
between telling and showing, i.e. the traditional method of relating a
story, in which the narrator is prominent (Plato’s diegesis), and a new,
quasi-dramatic method, in which the narrator retreats to the background
(Plato’s mimesis). Lubbock distinguishes four points of view, arranged
here in a sequence from telling to showing and paraphrased in more up-
to-date terms: (a) third-person narration with a prominent or authorial
narrator; (b) first-person narration; (c) third-person narration from the
point of view of a character, a Jamesian “reflector;” (d) third-person
narration without comments or inside views (called “the dramatic
method”). Lubbock does not recommend the fourth type, as one might
expect an advocate of showing to do. He points out the sacrifices that
this type entails, such as the difficulty of depicting the mental life of
characters (256–57), and he comes down in favor of the third type, the
reflector mode, which is also preferred by James. This type combines
387 Perspective/Point of View

access to the mental life of the reflector character with a withdrawal of

the narrator.
Lubbock is a spokesman for the Zeitgeist, especially as regards his
predilection for showing over telling and the withdrawal of the narra-
tor. The only conspicuous dissenter is Forster, who argues that novel­
ists need not be consistent in their point of view and that narratorial
comments and intrusions are legitimate ([1927] 1990: 81–84). But this
is a minority opinion. Even three decades later the premises and prefer­
ences established by James and Lubbock are still going strong. Fried­
man (1955) continues to advocate consistency in point of view and ex­
presses a somewhat qualified predilection for showing as against tel-
ling. Like Lubbock, he uses this opposition as the principle underlying
a range of no less than eight points of view ([1955] 1967: 119–31): (1)
“editorial omniscience” (third-person narration with an intrusive nar­
rator); (2) “neutral omniscience” (similar to the first, with a less intru-
sive narrator); (3) “‘I’ as witness” (minor character as first-person nar­
rator); (4) “‘I’ as protagonist” (protagonist as first-person narrator); (5)
“multiple selective omniscience” (third-person narration from the point
of view of several characters in succession, as in Woolf’s Mrs Dallo­
way); (6) “selective omniscience” (third-person narration from the
point of view of one character); (7) “the dramatic mode” (third-person
narration in scenic mode without inside views); (8) “the camera” (like
the previous, without a clear distinction). Friedman’s typology includes
several different criteria: the knowledge of the narrator (which distin­
guishes 1 and 2 from 5 and 6); the frequency with which a narrator
comments on or interrupts the story (1 vs. 2); the question of whether a
narrator is also a character (3 and 4 vs. the rest); the narrator’s impor-
tance as a character (3 vs. 4); constancy or change of point of view (5
vs. 6); etc. It is a moot point whether all of these criteria should be sub­
sumed under the one umbrella term of point of view. Furthermore, it
may be doubted whether each of the eight types can be situated at a
particular point on a scale ranging from telling to showing. Why the
“‘I’ as witness” should tell more and show less than the “‘I’ as protag­
onist” is far from evident. Nor is it obvious why these two are more re­
mote from the telling mode than types (1) and (2). A first-person nar­
rator who tells the story with hindsight and frequently comments on the
action is a better example of the telling mode than “neutral omni­
science,” Friedman’s second type.
A major objective of the Lubbock-Friedman school is the elimina­
tion of the narrator, in particular the avoidance of narratorial comment,
which they regard as intrusive moralizing. A novel, according to these
critics, should make the readers see or experience the story instead of
 Perspective/Point of View 388

telling them what to think about it. Booth delivers a trenchant critique
of such claims in The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961), arguing that the eli-
mination of ideology envisaged by the advocates of showing is a delu­
sion. Narrative has, as the title of his book implies, a rhetorical dimen­
sion: it communicates views and values. Doing so in an overt way, with
a visible narrator making explicit comments, is just as legitimate as do­
ing so in a covert way, by opting for a first-person narrator or adopting
the point of view of a character. In a similar vein, Weimann (1962)
traces the historical development from narrators who speak their minds
to narrators who adopt the point of view of a character; to Weimann,
this development is a story of decadence and decline. Twenty years
after these critics, Lanser (1981) restates their arguments with some
new inflections. While Weimann argues from a Marxist standpoint,
Lanser is inspired by feminism, and where Booth draws on rhetoric to
situate the techniques of fiction within a broader framework, Lanser re­
lies on speech act theory. Furthermore, she is no longer concerned with
repudiating Lubbock and Friedman, but rather responds to structural­
ists such as Chatman and Genette. These differences notwithstanding,
Lanser continues the case made by Booth and Weimann in that she en­
dorses a study of point of view that includes its socio-political implica­
tions and the writer’s ideological agenda.
A model that has been highly influential in the German-speaking
world is Stanzel’s typological circle, which was first proposed in 1955
and presented in its most elaborate form in 1979 (tr. 1984). In this ver­
sion, the circle is organized around three diametrical lines (see illustr.).
They represent three criteria, each of which results in a binary opposi­
tion yielding two terms: mode (narrator vs. reflector); perspective (in­
ternal vs. external); person (identity vs. non-identity of the narrator’s
and the characters’ realms, i.e. first person vs. third person). The six
terms resulting from the three criteria are placed at equidistant points
on the typological circle. Three of them define the “narrative situa-
tions” that are privileged in that, empirically speaking, most extant nar­
ratives cluster around them. The external perspective corresponds to
the authorial situation, the reflector mode to the figural situation, and
the identity of the realms of existence of narrator and characters to the
first-person situation. Thus each narrative situation is defined by one of
the poles in the binary opposition resulting from the three criteria and
also, to a lesser extent, by the two adjacent poles. The figural situation,
for example, consists in the dominance of the reflector mode and is ad­
ditionally characterized by an internal perspective and by the non-iden­
tity of the worlds of narrator and character ([1979] 1984: 55).
389 Perspective/Point of View

Stanzel has always been given credit as an eloquent critic; his typo­
logical system, however, has not won much approval. Cohn, for ex­
ample, points out that the criteria of mode and perspective are so close
that they can be regarded as equivalent: a reflectorial mode implies an
internal perspective, a narratorial mode an external one (1981: 176–80;
cf. Genette [1983] 1988: 78–9). Cohn and other critics, such as Leib­
fried (1970: 246), have also suggested that Stanzel should allow for a
free combination of his oppositions instead of enclosing them in a
circle. This is especially obvious in the case of first-person narration,
which comes in two different forms: an authorial one, in which narra-
tors tell the story as they see it at the time of the narration, i.e. with
hindsight; and a figural one, in which they render it the way they expe-
rienced it as characters in the story. In the typological circle, these two
forms can be accommodated only as intermediate cases between the
narrative situations, which is awkward. While it makes sense to posit a
range of transitional cases between the authorial and the figural situa-
tion, no such range exists between the I-situation and the two other
situations. A narrative may be a perfect example of both first-person
and figural narration. Cohn, for one, has shown that free indirect
thought, a form of thought presentation associated with the figural nar­
rative situation, occurs in first-person narrative (1978: 166–72).
 Perspective/Point of View 390

3.2 Genette and his Critics

The free combination of distinctions is the hallmark of Genette’s Nar­

rative Discourse, the most influential contribution to narrative theory
from the quarters of French structuralism. Genette attacks theorists like
Friedman and Stanzel for locating such terms as first-person narration,
the dramatic mode or figural narration within the same category as
“points of view” or “narrative situations.” Genette insists on separating
questions and distinctions relating to the narrator (“voice” in his ter­
minology) from those relating to perspective, arguing in favor of a free
combination of narrator types and point-of-view types. Furthermore,
Genette introduces a neologism, replacing perspective with  focaliza­
tion ([1972] 1980: 185–211). He distinguishes three types of focaliza­
tion, which differ primarily in the amount of information they allow the
narrator to communicate. Zero or non-focalization, a reformulation of
the traditional idea of omniscience, grants the narrator access to every
conceivable region of the storyworld; internal focalization, roughly
equivalent to Stanzel’s figural narrative situation, means a restriction to
the experience of one character; external focalization, similar to Fried­
man’s camera, imposes an even greater restriction, for it precludes in­
side views and limits narration to what an ignorant and uninvolved ob­
server might perceive. Genette adds a further distinction to the second
or internal type, which may be either fixed (adhering to one character
throughout the text), variable (shifting between different characters) or
multiple (shifting between different characters while retelling the same
event).
Genette’s rigorous separation of narrators and focalizations has
more than once been hailed as a Copernican breakthrough in narrative
theory, but surprisingly few narratologists have been willing to accept
the consequences of this separation. After all, it makes sense only if
narrators and perspectives are distinct categories, in other words if the
choice of a particular kind of narrator does not entail a particular per­
spective. Genette suggests that, in principle at least, his three focaliza­
tions may occur in first-person narration just as much as in third-person
narration ([1983] 1988: 114–29). However, scholars such as Fludernik
(2001b: 621) or Cordesse (1988) disagree with this homological model.
They argue that omniscience or zero focalization is not an option for a
first-person narrator, since he does not have access to other minds and
is restricted to what he has learnt in the course of the story. Further­
more, Fludernik claims, following a suggestion by Cohn, that first-per­
son narrators cannot exclude their own thoughts and feelings (Cohn &
Genette [1985] 1992: 263). Even when a first-person narrator does not
391 Perspective/Point of View

reveal them, rendering the story in the camera mode, the reader will at­
tribute thoughts and feelings to him or her in the process of reading
(Fludernik 2001a: 103).
A comprehensive treatment of focalization or perspective in first-
person narrative is given by Edmiston, who comes to the following
conclusions (1991: 168): zero focalization is possible (but has to be re­
garded as an infraction of a literary norm); internal focalization is also
possible, with the experiencing I as the point-of-view character; extern­
al focalization in the Genettean sense is not an option, but there is the
additional option of telling the story from the point of view of the nar­
rating I (for which Edmiston enlists the now-unemployed term of ex­
ternal focalization). While these conclusions do not precisely confirm
the homological model suggested by Genette, they would appear to
corroborate his general stance of allowing for a relatively free combi-
nation of narrator and point-of-view options. It should also be kept in
mind that the case for a restriction of point of view or focalization in
first-person narrative is always based on the knowledge of the narrator.
This, however, is only one facet or parameter of point of view. Further­
more, this case rests on rather commonsensical or realistic assump­
tions. Since most of us are willing to abandon such assumptions when
it comes to narrative content, it is hard to see why we should be less
broad-minded about narrative discourse. If we are willing to be enter­
tained by invisibility cloaks, we should not demur at first-person nar­
rators who are omniscient.
In addition to the debate about the applicability of Genette’s classi­
fication of focalizations to first-person narration, there has also been a
more general debate about the triple nature of this typology. Most nar­
ratologists seem to prefer a dual model to a triple one: see, e.g., Bal
([1985] 1997: 148), Vitoux (1982), Rabatel (1997) or Schmid ([2005]
2008: 137–38), all of whom distinguish, in different terms, between a
narratorial and a figural perspective. What is eliminated from these
dual typologies is the camera mode (Genette’s external focalization),
which, however, has been defended by Broich (1983). Interestingly,
even some of those who are skeptical about the camera mode make
subordinate concessions or distinctions which would appear to indicate
that this mode is not a figment of the narratological imagination. While
Bal compensates for the elimination of Genette’s external focalization
by introducing the concept of the focalized object, Vitoux grants the
narrator a “play of focalization” (359), which includes external focal-
ization as one of its options. Finally, Rabatel allows for an external vi-
sion both within narratorial and figural focalization (101–02).
 Perspective/Point of View 392

3.3 Parameters, Perspective Structure and

the Foregrounding of Perspective

A major tendency in recent work on perspective is an increasing aware­

ness of the diversity of the phenomenon. Scholars elaborate on the bas-
ic types of the various classifications by discussing changes from one
type to another, intermediate cases, embeddings, transgressions or un­
usual combinations. One method of accounting for the complexity of
narrative perspective is to distinguish its different facets or parameters.
Schmid, who builds on earlier studies along these lines by Uspenskij,
Lintvelt and Rimmon-Kenan, discerns five such parameters: space;
ideology; time; language; perception ([2005] 2008: 123–37). The point
of distinguishing these parameters is that they are not necessarily in
line with each other. A narrative may report events as they are per­
ceived by a character, while at the same time using language that is
very remote from that of the character. This is the case of James, as
was pointed out long ago by Scholes et al. ([1966] 2006: 270) and re­
cently reiterated by Aczel (1998). James’s novel What Maisie Knew
tells us what Maisie knew, but it does not show us how Maisie spoke.
Of course, the different parameters may also be in line, as in the begin­
ning of A Portrait of the Artist, where the narrator renders a child’s
perceptions in a child’s language. The alignment of parameters is refer-
red to as “compact perspective” by Schmid, their dissociation as “dis­
tributive perspective” ([2005] 2008: 151–52). It should be added that
scholars who favor the parameter approach to perspective are not in
full agreement about the distinction and the number of parameters.
Thus Fowler, who reviews Uspenskij in similarly favorable terms as
Schmid, argues that the parameter of “phraseology” (corresponding to
“language” in Schmid’s quintuple division) is not a separate parameter,
but is inextricably bound up with the others. “By separating off ‘phra-
seology,’ the theorist simply expresses nostalgia for the text as decora-
tive form” (Fowler 1982: 226).
An interesting recent development initiated by Nünning (2001) and
followed up by Surkamp (2003) is an attempt to enlist Pfister’s theory
of perspective in drama for the study of narrative. Ironically, this theo-
ry was initially motivated by the inverse attempt to enlist a narratologi-
cal concept for the study of drama (Pfister [1977] 2000: 57). According
to Pfister, the perspective of a character in a play is constituted by psy­
chological disposition, ideology and the awareness of what the other
characters are up to. As the combination of these three factors will dif­
fer from one character to another, they will view and judge the same
event in different ways. Pfister’s interest is not so much in individual
393 Perspective/Point of View

perspectives as it is in the differences or similarities between them. The

point is to establish the structure of perspectives, to hear the more or
less harmonious concert that is performed by the voices of a play.
Structure may be non-perspectival, approximately realized in some me­
dieval moralities (all of the characters function as authorial mouth­
pieces, lacking individual perspectives); it may be closed (different
perspectives are hierarchically structured around a privileged perspec-
tive, which is either explicit, i.e. articulated by one of the characters, or
implicit); finally, it may be open (a hierarchy between the different per­
spectives is lacking so that no privileged perspective emerges). Nün­
ning transfers Pfister’s theory to narrative, with some minor adjust­
ments concerning the relations between the perspectives and one major
adjustment. Narrative features not only characters, but also a narrator
whose perspective is defined, in similarly broad terms as that of a char­
acter, as a set of “psychological idiosyncrasies, attitudes, norms and
values, a set of mental properties, and a world-model” (Nünning 2001:
213).
Nünning certainly has a point, for one thing because the texts that
most narratologists deal with include dialogue and are thus partly dra­
matic. Even as far as the strictly narrative portions of the text are con­
cerned, Nünning’s approach is valuable in that it alerts us to the poten­
tial plurality and diversity of perspectives. However, the dramatic anal-
ogy can also be misleading. In drama there are roughly as many per­
spectives as there are characters who speak. In narrative, however, the
mere existence of a character does not imply that his or her perspective
is of any importance. If we learn that a character is a teenage girl, we
can make certain assumptions about her knowledge, her interests, her
values, etc. But this only turns into a perspective when we learn about
her views of the world around her. How prominent her perspective be­
comes also depends, of course, on the way her views are represented—
with lofty disdain, with amusement, or with sympathy. Another prob­
lem in Nünning’s approach to perspective is a potential loss of the rela­
tional quality of the concept. When he writes that character perspective
“embraces everything that exists in the mind of the character” (2001:
211), there is a strong shift in the direction of the viewing subject and a
danger of abandoning the relational character of the concept pointed
out by Lanser (1981: 13). To sum up, perspective structure provides us
with a chart of the potential perspectival reference points of a text,
whereas the more traditional narratological accounts of perspective
analyze where the narrator situates the representation of the story in re­
lation to these points or how he or she makes it move between them.
 Perspective/Point of View 394

An intriguing and important question about perspective is asked by

Bonheim: Why is it that in some narratives point of view seems to be
highly important and significant, while in others it appears to be negli­
gible? (1990: 300). In other words, can there be narrative without per­
spective or with a less conspicuous one? If we think of the concept in
purely spatio-visual terms, the answer is not difficult. One can tell a
story without a fixed viewpoint in the literal sense, just as one can
paint a landscape without perspective. This has been demonstrated by
Stanzel ([1979] 1984: 117–22) and by Jahn (1999: 95–100), who elab­
orates on Stanzel’s binary distinction between perspectival and non-
perspectival depiction of space with a scalar model. Similarly, if one
thinks of focalization in terms of restriction of information, then
Genette’s zero focalization, the equivalent of non-perspectival narra-
tive, would appear to be a possibility; at the very least, focalizations
may be more or less restricted. Based on these premises, the answer to
Bonheim’s question is that narrative can be perspectival and non-per­
spectival, focalized or non-focalized, and also something in-between.
However, the answer becomes more difficult if we follow Uspenskij or
Lanser in defining perspective in a more inclusive manner. If perspec-
tive also has an ideological dimension, a narrative without perspective
is hardly possible. However, even on the premise of a more inclusive
definition, perspective may be more or less conspicuous. A writer can
foreground it by assigning it to a character not usually selected for such
purposes, e.g. a toddler, as in A Portrait of the Artist, or an animal, an
interesting case discussed by Nelles (2001) and Burns (2002). Argu­
ably, every shift of perspective from a narrator to a character has a
foregrounding effect, even if the character is of a thoroughly unremark­
able sort. Schmid argues that in comparison with narrator perspective,
character perspective is “marked” in the linguistic sense ([2005] 2008:
138). Perspective is foregrounded precisely when it is perceived as a
perspective, i.e. as a limited or partial view among other views of the
matter that are equally possible. When a narrator adopts a character’s
perspective, the latter’s view will be contextualized and qualified by
the mere fact of the narrator’s presence: it will appear not as the view,
but as one view. Of all literary genres or modes, narrative seems to be
the one most suited to create this effect, which is not the least of its at­
tractions.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) It has been observed that camera narration alias external focaliza­
tion is employed only for part of a text, very often the beginning. It
395 Perspective/Point of View

would be interesting to study the transitions where this mode is aban­

doned. Is the transition to a narratorial or to a figural point of view?
The former possibility would confirm Vitoux’s (1982) claim that cam­
era narration is merely an option in the play of narratorial focalization.
(b) The study of perspective has focused almost exclusively on fiction­
al narrative. An exploration of the subject in non-fictional narrative
genres might yield interesting results in its own right and also throw
new light on the phenomenon in fiction. (c) When narratologists review
the work of their predecessors, they usually focus on the gaps and the
mistakes. Previous theories are demolished or quarried for the purpose
of building a new one. This does not make for a fair appraisal of the
critical tradition. Perhaps it is time for a non-partisan history of theo-
ries of point of view and related metaphors from James (or earlier) to
the present day, preferably by someone who makes a vow not to con­
clude the study with a new theory or typology of their own.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Aczel, Richard (1998). “Hearing Voices in Narrative Texts.” New Literary History 29,
467–500.
Bal, Mieke ([1985] 1997). Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative.
Toronto: U of Toronto P.
Bonheim, Helmut (1990). “Point of View Models.” H. B. Literary Systematics. Cam­
bridge: Brewer, 285–307.
Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
Broich, Ulrich (1983). “Gibt es eine ‘neutrale Erzählsituation’?” Germanisch-Romani-
sche Monatsschrift 33, 129–45.
Burns, Allan (2002). “Extensions of Vision: The Representation of Non-Human Points
of View.” Papers on Language and Literature: A Journal for Scholars and Critics
of Language and Literature 38, 339–50.
Carter, B.A.R. (1970). “Perspective.” H. Osborne (ed). The Oxford Companion to Art.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 840–61.
Chatman, Seymour (1990). Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Cohn, Dorrit (1978). Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Conscious­
ness in Fiction. Princeton: Princeton UP.
– (1981). “The Encirclement of Narrative: On Franz Stanzel’s Theorie des Erzäh­
lens.” Poetics Today 2, 157–82.
– & Gérard Genette ([1985] 1992). “A Narratological Exchange.” A. Fehn et al.
(eds). Neverending Stories. Toward a Critical Narratology. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 258–66.
Cordesse, Gérard (1988). “Narration et focalisation.” Poétique 19, 487–98.
 Perspective/Point of View 396

Edmiston, William F. (1991). Hindsight and Insight: Focalization in Four Eighteenth-

Century French Novels. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
– (2001a). “The Establishment of Internal Focalization in Odd Pronominal Contexts.”
W. van Peer & S. Chatman (eds). New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective. Al­
bany: SUNY, 101–13.
– (2001b). “New Wine in Old Bottles? Voice, Focalization, and New Writing.” New
Literary History 32, 619–38.
Forster, Edward M. ([1927] 1990). Aspects of the Novel. London: Penguin.
Fowler, Roger (1982). “How to See through Language: Perspective in Fiction.” Poetics
11, 213–35.
Friedman, Norman ([1955] 1967). “Point of View in Fiction: The Development of a
Critical Concept.” Ph. Stevick (ed). The Theory of the Novel. New York: Free,
108–37.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.
– ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Jahn, Manfred (1996). “Windows of Focalization: Deconstructing and Reconstructing a
Narratological Concept.” Style 30, 241–67.
– (1999). “More Aspects of Focalization: Refinements and Applications.” J. Pier
(ed). Recent Trends in Narratological Research. Tours: GRAAT, 85–110.
James, Henry ([1908] 1972). Theory of Fiction. Ed. J. E. Miller. Lincoln: U of Neb­
raska P.
Joyce, James ([1916] 1926). A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. London: Cape.
Lanser, Susan Sniader (1981). The Narrative Act: Point of View in Prose Fiction.
Princeton: Princeton UP.
Leibfried, Erwin (1970). Kritische Wissenschaft vom Text. Manipulation, Reflexion,
transparanente Poetologie. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Lubbock, Percy ([1921] 1972). The Craft of Fiction. London: Cape.
Morrison, Kristin (1961/62). “James’s and Lubbock’s Differing Points of View.” Nine­
teenth-Century Fiction 16, 245–55.
Nelles, William (2001). “Beyond the Bird’s Eye: Animal Focalization.” Narrative 9,
188–94.
Nünning, Ansgar (2001). “On the Perspective Structure of Narrative Texts.” W. van
Peer & S. Chatman (eds). New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective. Albany:
SUNY, 207–23.
Pfister, Manfred ([1977] 2000). The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Cambridge: Cam­
bridge UP.
Rabatel, Alain (1997). “L’introuvable focalisation externe: De la subordination de la
vision externe au point de vue du personnage ou au point de vue du narrateur.” Lit­
térature 107, 88–113.
Schmid, Wolf ([2005] 2008). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Scholes, Robert, et al. ([1966] 2006). The Nature of Narrative. 40th anniversary ed.
London: Oxford UP.
Stang, Richard ([1959] 1961). The Theory of the Novel in England: 1850–1870. Lon­
don: Routledge.
Stanzel, Franz K. ([1979] 1984). A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
397 Perspective/Point of View

Surkamp, Carola (2003). Die Perspektivenstruktur narrativer Texte: Zu ihrer Theorie

und Geschichte im englischen Roman zwischen Viktorianismus und Moderne.
Trier: WVT.
Vitoux, Pierre (1982). “Le jeu de la focalisation.” Poétique, 13, 359–468.
Weimann, Robert (1962). “Erzählerstandpunkt und point of view: Zu Geschichte und
Ästhetik der Perspektive im englischen Roman.” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Ame­
rikanistik 10, 369–416.

5.2 Further Reading

Bärtschi, Willy A. (1976). Perspektive: Geschichte, Konstruktionsanleitung und Er­
scheinungsformen in Umwelt und bildender Kunst. Ravensburg: Maier.
Breuer, Horst (1998). “Typenkreise und Kreuztabellen: Modelle erzählerischer Ver­
mittlung.” Poetica 30, 233–49.
Guillén, Claudio (1971). “On the Concept and Metaphor of Perspective.” C. G. Literat­
ure as System. Essays toward the Theory of Literary History. Princeton: Princeton
UP, 283–371.
Lintvelt, Jaap ([1981] 1989). Essai de typologie narrative. Le “Point de vue.” Paris:
José Corti.
Nünning, Vera & Ansgar Nünning (2000). Multiperspektivisches Erzählen: Zur Theo­
rie und Geschichte der Perspektiven-Struktur im englischen Roman des 18. bis 20.
Jahrhunderts. Trier: WVT.
Petersen, Jürgen H. (1993). Erzählsysteme: Eine Poetik epischer Texte. Stuttgart: Metz­
ler.
Rabatel, Alain (1997). Une Histoire du Point de Vue. Metz: U de Metz.
Rossholm, Göran, ed. (2004). Essays on Fiction and Perspective. Bern: Lang.
Röttgers, Kurt & Monika Schmitz-Emans, eds. (1999). Perspektive in Literatur und
bildender Kunst. Essen: Die Blaue Eule.
van Peer, Willie & Seymour Chatman, eds. (2001). New Perspectives on Narrative
Perspective. Albany: SUNY.
 Reader
Gerald Prince

1 Definition

A reader is a decoder, decipherer, interpreter of written (narrative)

texts or, more generally, of any text in the broad sense of signifying
matter.

2 Explication

Real, concrete readers—who have been studied from a variety of points

of view (Groeben 1977; Manguel 1996; Franzmann et al. eds. 1999;
Schneider 2004)—should be distinguished from more abstract readers.
These include, inter alia, the authors’ ideal readers, who understand
perfectly and approve entirely every authorial word or intention (→ au­
thor). They include the various readers posited by students of texts and
constituting interpretive devices, like Riffaterre’s superreader (1966:
215) or the plain “reader” invoked by so many critics. In addition, they
include readers inferrable from texts or explicitly characterized as their
addressees, such as Booth’s postulated reader ([1961] 1983: 137–44,
177), Gibson’s mock reader (1950), Iser’s implied reader (1972), or the
narratee discussed by Genette ([1972] 1980: 259–62, [1983] 1988:
130–34) and Prince (1971, 1973).

3 History of the Concept and its Study

In the Western tradition, concern with the reader has a long history. It
goes back to Plato (e.g. the attack against the negative influence of po­
etry) and Aristotle (the concept of catharsis), famously manifests itself
in Horace, Longinus, the Greco-Roman rhetoricians and their descend­
ants, is found throughout the Renaissance, and persists in the modern
period. In fact, though it decreased with the New Criticism’s focus on
the text itself and denunciation of the intentional and affective fal­
399 Reader

lacies, concern with the reader acquired unprecedented critical prom-

inence in the 1970s.
For most of this history, interest in readers pertains more specifi-
cally to the effects of texts on real audiences. Depending on views of
the nature and power of language, literature, or art, these effects are
thought to be moral, sociopolitical, psychological, intellectual, esthetic;
and real readers are seen as passive instead of active, objects rather
than subjects, creatures to entertain, teach, move, reform, or redeem.
This orientation changes radically in the second half of the 20 th cen­
tury, when attention is also paid to textually inscribed addressees as
well as to the role of audiences in interpretation and evaluation.

3.1 Precursors

Paradoxically, one important precursor of this change is Richards

(1929), who is widely regarded as the father of the New Criticism and
its objectivist poetics. In a study which also deals with the influence of
poetry on the reader and proposes tools for the analysis of literature,
Richards analyzed students’ interpretive reactions to poems and iso-
lated some of the factors that lead to misreadings, such as critical pre­
conceptions, stock responses, and irrelevant associations. Another im­
portant precursor of this change is Rosenblatt (1938). Her preoccupa­
tion with the teaching of literature and with the real reader’s ability to
take part in the literary experience led her to examine that experience,
to reject the objectivist position of the New Criticism, and to underline
in her transactional theory the interaction between what the reader con­
tributes to the text and the latter’s specificity. For Rosenblatt, interpre-
tation crucially depends on the reader’s experience and, to be valid, it
must not contradict the text or yield conclusions that have no textual
basis. Gibson (1950) is a third critic whose work anticipates the reader-
oriented theory and criticism of the 1970s. By focusing on the mock
reader—a figure implied by the text, a part which flesh-and-blood read­
ers are asked to play and in terms of which they situate themselves vis-
à-vis the text and its values—Gibson also pointed to the real audience’s
interpretive and evaluative role.
Among other students of literature who, before the flowering of
audience-oriented criticism, similarly drew attention to readers and
their relation to textual meaning, at least Booth (1961), Ingarden (1931,
1937), and Sartre (1948) should be briefly discussed. Like Gibson,
Booth distinguished the real reader of fiction from what he called the
reader’s second self, a figure created by the author and postulated by
the text, which the real reader must be willing to become and with
 Reader 400

whose views and beliefs s/he must agree in order to enjoy that text. By
emphasizing the rhetorical dimension of fiction, Booth departed from
the New Critical formalist stance and its attention to texts severed from
their authors and readers. Ingarden belonged to a very different tradi­
tion, since it is as a phenomenologist that he considered questions of
poetics and esthetics. As early as 1931, he studied the ways in which
readers (adequately) realize or concretize a work of art, the ways in
which they transform a text or mere series of sentences into an esthetic
object by filling gaps or places of indeterminacy in that text. As for
Sartre, in seeking to define literature and the necessary commitment it
constitutes and entails, he argued that writers write for their time, for
real, historical readers whose freedom they address and depend upon
rather than for universal, eternal, ideal readers. He further argued that
writing and reading are intimately connected and that the literary object
results from their combined action. Indeed, he insisted that, while every
text contains the image of the reader toward whom it is directed, every
concrete reader is a creator, necessary for the renewed emergence of
the literary object and situated between what is given by the writer and
what is not.

3.2 The Blossoming of Reader-oriented Criticism

If these various precursors (and others, like Baxtin 1929 or Burke

1931: 38–56) explore fundamental questions pertaining to the nature of
readers and reading, it is in the 1970s that audience-oriented theory or
criticism flourishes and that the reader becomes a central figure for
many students of literature. Of the many possible reasons for this flour­
ishing, perhaps the most general one is the rejection promoted by vari­
ous sociopolitical movements in Europe and the United States (the
Civil Rights Movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the German
student movement, May 68) of established institutions and authority
figures. The spread of anti-authoritarianism and attendant calls for
democratizing the academy, aspirations to relevant curricula, reanal-
yses of the construction, circulation, or distribution of knowledge
would result in the questioning of various entrenched principles and
methods of textual interpretation and evaluation (New Critical stric­
tures, Marxist injunctions, humanist directives). Indeed, there is no
unity among reader-oriented theorists and critics. They differ not only
in terms of national origins or contexts but also in terms of presupposi­
tions, programs, aims, and, more particularly, interest in narrative and
narratology. As a matter of fact, many of them are not (specifically)
401 Reader

concerned with narrative and their work has no (specifically) narrato-

logical implications.
Riffaterre (1959, 1966, 1971, 1978), for example, who argued that
the style of a text is revealed by the reactions of the “superreader”—a
composite of the text’s real readers, akin to what he once called the
“average reader” (1959: 164–65)—to textual unpredictabilities, was
trying to establish objective criteria for the analysis of style, to develop
a structural stylistics, and to account more generally for the semiotics
of literature. Culler (1975), much of whose work can also be regarded
as semiotico-structuralist, focused on characterizing literary (rather
than narrative) competence and conventions of reading. Similarly, the
psychoanalytic critic Holland (1968, 1975), whose investigations led
him to conclude that the meaning of a literary text is a function of the
real reader’s basic “identity theme” or psychological makeup (1975:
56–62), was primarily interested in the effects of personality on inter­
pretation. Another proponent of “subjective criticism,” Bleich (1975,
1978), who emphasized the influence of reading on self-understanding
and the links between reader response and interpretation, was inter­
ested in the bases of humanistic knowledge and the reform of the teach­
ing of literature. Jauss (1970, 1977, 1978), the highly influential advo-
cate of Rezeptionsästhetik—which is different from the German tradi­
tion of empirical research on real readers (e.g. Groeben 1977; Franz-
mann et al. eds. 1999)—wanted to reinvigorate literary history when he
called for the study of readers’ horizons of expectations and for the
elaboration of a history of esthetic response. Like these critics or theo-
rists, Fish (1967, 1980) was not concerned with narratological issues,
but with the nature of literature, the goals of criticism, the bases of in­
terpretation. Proposing a feminist approach, Fetterley (1978) developed
the notion of a “resisting reader”: according to her, American literature
“immasculates” its readers (forces them to think and feel in masculine
terms), and she encourages resistance to this male rhetoric by devising
ways of reading not as a man but as a woman. Last though by no means
least, Radway (1984), who directed her attention to readers of narrative
romances, insisted on the different reading assumptions of (lower
middle class) women and (academic) men.

3.3 The Implied Reader

Although not working in a narratological vein and although primarily

aiming to revitalize literary study by concentrating on readers instead
of texts or authors, some theorists and critics in the 1970s produced
work of considerable significance for narratology. Perhaps the most in­
 Reader 402

fluential reader figure in this context is Iser’s implied reader. A leader

of the Constance School along with Jauss, Iser, who used a phenomen­
ological approach and a corpus of prose fiction, investigated the act of
reading and the contributions of both text and reader to textual mean­
ing (1970, 1972, 1976). Much like Ingarden, he distinguished between
the text, its concretization by the reader, and the work of art resulting
from their convergence. He argued that the text pre-structures and
guides the production of meaning by gradually supplying skeletal as­
pects or schematized views of what will become the work of art, while
leaving between them areas of indeterminacy or gaps to be filled by the
reader completing the artwork. The implied reader, which is not to be
confused with a real reader ([1976] 1978: 34), allows Iser to take the
text as well as the reading activity into account. Patterned, at least ter­
minologically, after Booth’s → implied author, the implied reader
([1972] 1974: xii) is both a textual element, an entity deducible from
the text, and a meaning-producing mechanism, a set of mental opera­
tions involved in sense-making (selecting and organizing information,
relating past and present knowledge, anticipating facts and outcomes,
constructing and modifying patterns). It includes the schematized as­
pects, the gaps, and the processes eliminating them, the constraints and
directions set by the text as well as the mental activities of reading. Iser
was criticized for distinguishing unproblematically between determi-
nate and indeterminate parts of texts (Fish 1981) and for not suffi­
ciently specifying the nature of the gaps or studying their raison d’être
(cf. Kloepfer 1979; Stierle 1975). He was also criticized for overem­
phasizing textual input and inadequately exploring the freedom (and
variable results) that reading may entail (Mailloux 1982: 51–53). In­
deed, the implied reader could even be considered a kind of equivalent
to authorial intention and textual meaning or to a set of preferred (Iser-
ian) interpretations. Whatever the validity of these criticisms—and oth­
ers, directed at Iser’s liberal ideological assumptions (Holub 1984: 97–
100) or at his failure to give his reader figure a (significant) historical
dimension (Suleiman 1980: 25–6)—it remains that the implied reader
not only supplied a handy term for students of narrative; it also pointed
to the room any (narrative) text provides for the reader and often came
to represent the counterpart of the implied author in the structure of
narrative transmission (from real author to real reader through implied
author, narrator, narratee, and implied reader). Moreover, it helped to
emphasize the dynamics of narrative semiosis, to characterize a number
of narrative techniques or strategies, to draw attention to the role of vir­
tuality in narrative, and to promote taxonomies of narrative according
to the number (or kind) of gaps obtaining.
403 Reader

3.4 The Model Reader

While Iser was more interested in narrative fiction than in narrative and
drew mainly on phenomenology to elaborate his implied reader, Eco
(1979) explicitly claimed to be interested in narrativity (12) and drew
primarily on semiotics to develop the model reader (7–10). Paradoxi-
cally, the latter resembles the Iserian figure in many ways. According
to Eco, a text is the result of two components, the information which
the author supplies and the information which the model reader adds
and which is more or less strictly determined by the author’s input
(206). The model reader, which corresponds to the set of felicity condi­
tions that must be satisfied for the text’s potential to be actualized (11),
removes indeterminacies. It fills in blanks with (modifiable and re­
placeable) sets of propositions or “ghost chapters” (214–15) that derive
from codes, conventions, interpretive procedures, and knowledge shar-
ed with the author. Though Eco may not always succeed in distinguish­
ing clearly between the model reader and actual readers (including
himself as reader), between description, interpretation, and prescrip­
tion, his analysis, like that of Iser, directs attention to the play of narra-
tive semiosis. More notably, through its characterization of “ghost
chapters” and the “possible worlds” they constitute, it underlines the
role of virtuality in narrative and foreshadows significant developments
in narrative semantics (Ryan 1991: 169–74).

3.5 The Voice of Reading

Another famous semiotician (or semiologist), Barthes, proclaimed the

author’s death and the reader’s birth as the locus of textual meaning,
the place where the various texts constituting a text are united (1967).
Moreover, he drew attention to the erotic quality of reading and distin­
guished between pleasurable and rapturous texts (1973), just as he had
previously distinguished between readerly and writerly texts (1970).
The former as opposed to the latter make room for the voice of reading
([1970] 1974: 151–52). They are “traditional” and can be read or un­
derstood in terms of established codes and modes. The latter are “mod­
ern,” unfamiliar, strange; they can be written, but they cannot be
grasped in terms of these codes and modes. In his reading of “Sarra-
sine,” Barthes (1970) characterized five major codes through which
Balzac’s novella (or, presumably, any narrative) is interpretable: the
proairetic code, according to which narratives can be structured as se­
quences of actions; the hermeneutic code, according to which they can
be structured as paths leading from questions or enigmas to (possible)
answers or solutions; the referential code, in terms of which they are
 Reader 404

related to various bodies of knowledge and cultural objects; the semic

code, which allows for the construction of characters and settings; and
the symbolic code, which governs the production and reception of sym­
bolic meaning. Barthes’s account exerted considerable influence on
theorists and critics interested in poetics as a theory of reading and in
the rules and operations underlying literary competence or the ability to
read texts literarily (cf. Culler 1975). Though it was widely taken to re­
ject the assumptions and goals of narratology (e.g. the view of texts as
structured products rather than productive structurations, or the ambi­
tion to develop a science of narrative), it was also highly influential on
narratologists. They viewed many of its arguments as elaborations of
points made in Barthes’s earlier “Introduction to the Structural Analy-
sis of Narrative” (1966). In particular, they regarded its comments on
the voice of reading as developments of the brief remarks through
which Barthes had drawn attention, in that famous narratological mani­
festo, to the signs of “the reader’s presence […] within the narrative it­
self” ([1966] 1975: 260) as well as to the narratively signified commu­
nication between → narrator and audience (249, 260–61, 264).

3.6 The Narratee

These brief remarks—along with similar comments by Todorov (1966:

146–47) and parallel work by Genette in his outstanding investigation
of narrative discourse (1972) as well as Gibson’s notion of the mock
reader and Booth’s discussion of the reader’s second self—proved par­
ticularly relevant for Prince’s exploration of the narratee, a reader fig­
ure explicitly tied to narrative and developed in terms of narratological
parameters (1971, 1973). Guided by formalist, structuralist, and semi­
otic principles, Prince sought to describe more accurately the structural
properties of narrative and the nature of its constitutive elements. Spe­
cifically, he argued that, just as narrators are distinguished from real or
implied authors, narratees should be distinguished from real, implied,
or other kinds of readers. The narratee is the audience (of one or more
than one) that the narrator in a given narrative addresses. Like the
enunciatee (or inscribed addressee of the textual I) in any text, the nar­
ratee is different from the real reader (the flesh-and-blood person actu­
ally reading the text) and the implied reader (since it is neither the
equivalent of the reader’s second self nor the counterpart or comple­
ment of the implied author and since it has no privileged position or
role with regard to interpretation). The narratee also differs from the
ideal reader (who grasps and approves every aspect of the text), the vir­
tual reader (for whom the real author believes s/he is writing and to
405 Reader

whom s/he assigns various characteristics and abilities) and from such
interpretive notions as superreaders, informed readers, or competent
readers (inscribed in the text, it may, in fact, prove incompetent and un­
informed). It is constituted and signified by textual signs of the “you”
narrated to (just as the narrator is constituted and signified by textual
signs of the “I” narrating): second-person pronouns and other forms of
address designating that “you” as well as signs functioning in more in­
tricate ways, such as negative passages explicitly contradicting its
stated beliefs or correcting its mistakes and metanarrative explanations
emphasizing the gaps in its understanding or knowledge. Analyzable
along the same lines as narrators, narratees can prove more or less
(temporally, intellectually, morally, emotionally) distant from the latter
and more or less prominent, dramatized, familiar with the situations
and events narrated, or changeable. As part of the makeup of any nar­
rative—and in addition to representing a fundamental link and relay
between real author and real reader, calling attention to the communi-
cation circuits within texts, and allowing for a more precise typology of
narrative based on the kind of audience they constitute—they always
help to characterize narrators through their links with them and can
contribute to plot development as well as underscore various themes.
Besides the narratee, Prince (1982: 103–43) discussed the real readers
of narratives and the act of reading narratively—stressing not only the
constraints imposed by the text, but also the ways in which the readers’
nature, interests, and goals partly determine the assumptions they make
about texts, the questions they ask of them, the answers they formulate
—and he also discussed how (narrative) texts partly read themselves,
as it were, by commenting explicitly on some of their constituents
(1980).

3.7 Other Audiences

The narratee, which was examined further by Piwowarczyk (1976), in­

tegrated into Chatman’s account of the various participants in narrative
transactions (1978: 147–51, 253–62) and revisited by Prince (1985),
who distinguished a narration’s enunciatee from its ostensible (though
not real) addressee and from its receiver, resembles what Rabinowitz
(1977, 1987) called the “narrative audience” in his characterization of
audiences of fictional narratives. Working in Booth’s rhetorical tradi­
tion, Rabinowitz explored the beliefs, values, and reception positions
that readers (must) have or adopt when reading fiction. Rabinowitz dis­
tinguished between the actual audience, the authorial audience or hypo­
thetical audience for whom the text is composed, the ideal narrative
 Reader 406

audience for whom the narrator (rather than the real author or the im­
plied author) wishes s/he were narrating, and the narrative audience for
whom s/he is narrating. As opposed to the actual audience and the au­
thorial audience, the narrative audience considers the represented char­
acters and events to be real and believes that the fiction narrated is a
history. As opposed to the narratee, it is not so much a figure “out
there” in the text as a role that the text asks (or requires) the real reader
to play. Rabinowitz’s model was largely adopted by Booth ([1961]
1983: 422–31) and clarified by Phelan (1996: 135–53). It not only con­
stitutes a tool for discussing various kinds of mimetic effects, various
types of narrative ambiguity, various sources of misreading, but also
captures the interplay of different belief systems at work in the act of
reading narrative fiction.
Alhough the prominence of reader-oriented criticism began to abate
by the mid-1980s, partly because many of its views of texts, their inter­
pretation, and their evaluation became commonplace, interest in read­
ers and reading continues to be significant (cf. Nardocchio ed. 1992;
Machor & Goldstein eds. 2001; Schweickart & Flynn ed. 2004; Schmid
2007). In the area of narrative study, in particular, second-person nar­
rative (and its blurring of distinctions between, say, the protagonist, the
narratee, and the narrative audience) has been further explored
(Fludernik ed. 1994), different manifestations of textual audiences have
been further examined (Richardson 1997), and the reader’s gradual
construction of narrative meaning has been further investigated (Ka­
falenos 2006). Through the integration of research in cognitive science
and discourse processing, “natural” narratology has linked readers’ nar­
rativization of texts with parameters derived from their real-life experi­
ence (Fludernik 1996); psychonarratology has studied the psychologi-
cal factors and operations underlying readers’ immersion in and under­
standing of narrative (Gerrig 1993; Bortolussi & Dixon 2003); → cog­
nitive narratology has aimed to analyze and characterize narrative sit-
uations and moves in terms of scripts, → schemata, and preference-rule
systems activated during the reading process (Jahn 1997); and, in gen­
eral, postclassical narratology has paid considerable attention to the in­
terface between narratives and their readers (Herman 2002).

4 Topics for Further Investigation

The various lines of inquiry mentioned above should be elaborated and

complemented by further experimental studies of the different kinds of
effect (physical, intellectual, emotional) produced by different kinds of
text (narrative or non-narrative, literary or non-literary, fictional or
407 Reader

non-fictional, in a book or online) and different kinds of (narrative)

technique on readers differing in terms of class, gender, race, sexuality,
aim, or ability. As for narratologists in particular, they should develop
formal accounts of narrative and its functioning that explicitly make
room for the voice of the real reader. In other words, they should de­
vise models indicating how, for instance, certain (portions of) texts can
function as iterative or singulative narrative, as free indirect or narra-
tized discourse, as presenting synchronous or asynchronous events, and
therefore can yield different meanings depending on the interpretive
decisions of that reader.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Baxtin, Mixail (Bakhtin, Mikhail) ([1929] 1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
Barthes, Roland ([1966] 1975). “An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narra-
tive.” New Literary History 6, 237–62.
– ([1967] 1977). “The Death of the Author.” Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill &
Wang, 142–48.
– ([1970] 1974). S/Z. New York: Hill & Wang.
– ([1973] 1975b). The Pleasure of the Text. New York: Hill & Wang.
Bleich, David (1975). Readings and Feelings: An Introduction to Subjective Criticism.
Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English.
– (1978). Subjective Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
Bortolussi, Marisa & Peter Dixon (2003). Psychonarratology: Foundations for the
Empirical Study of Literary Response. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Burke, Kenneth (1931). Counter-Statement. New York: Harcourt.
Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Culler, Jonathan (1975). Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study
of Literature. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Eco, Umberto (1979). The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts.
Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Fetterley, Judith (1978). The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fic­
tion. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Fish, Stanley (1967). Surprised by Sin: The Reader in “Paradise Lost.” New York:
St. Martin’s P.
– (1980). Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities.
Cambridge: Harvard UP.
– (1981). “Why No One’s Afraid of Wolfgang Iser.” Diacritics 11, 2–13.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‛Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
 Reader 408

– ed. (1994). “Second-Person Narrative.” Special issue of Style 28, 281–479.

Franzmann, Bodo, et al. eds. (1999). Handbuch Lesen. München: Saur.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
– ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Gerrig, Richard J. (1993). Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Ac-
tivities of Reading. New Haven: Yale UP.
Gibson, Walker (1950). “Authors, Speakers, Readers, and Mock Readers.” College
English 11, 265–69.
Groeben, Norbert (1977). Rezeptionforschung als empirische Literaturwissenschaft:
Paradigma- durch Methodendiskussion an Untersuchungspielen. Kronberg/Ts.:
Athenäum.
Herman, David (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
Holland, Norman (1968). The Dynamics of Literary Response. New York: Oxford UP.
– (1975). 5 Readers Reading. New Haven: Yale UP.
Holub, Robert C. (1984). Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction. London: Me-
thuen.
Ingarden, Roman ([1931] 1973). The Literary Work of Art: An Investigation on the
Borderlines of Ontology, Logic, and Theory of Literature. Evanston: Northwestern
UP.
– ([1937] 1973). The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art. Evanston: Northwestern
UP.
Iser, Wolfgang ([1970] 1971). “Indeterminacy and the Reader’s Response” J. H. Miller
(ed). Aspects of Narrative: Selected Papers from the English Institute. New York:
Columbia UP, 1–45.
– ([1972] 1974). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction
from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
– ([1976] 1978). The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins UP.
Jahn, Manfred (1997). “Frames, References, and the Reading of Third-Person Narra-
tives: Towards a Cognitive Narratology.” Poetics Today 18, 441–68.
Jauss, Hans Robert ([1970] 1970). “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary
Theory.” New Literary History 2, 7–37.
– ([1977] 1982). Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics. Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota P.
– (1978). “Theses on the Transition from the Aesthetics of Literary Works to a Theo-
ry of Aesthetic Experience.” M. J. Valdés & O. J. Miller (eds). Interpretation of
Narrative. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 137–47.
Kafalenos, Emma (2006). Narrative Causalities. Columbus: Ohio State UP.
Kloepfer, Rolf ([1979] 1982). “Escape into Reception: The Scientistic and Her­
meneutic Schools of German Literary Theory.” Poetics Today 3, 47–75.
Machor, James L. & Philip Goldstein eds. (2001). Reception Study: From Literary
Theory to Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge.
Mailloux, Steven J. (1982). Interpretive Conventions: The Reader in the Study of
American Fiction. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
409 Reader

Manguel, Alberto (1996). A History of Reading. New York: Viking.

Nardocchio, Elaine F., ed. (1992). Reader Response to Literature: The Empirical Di­
mension. Berlin: Mouton.
Phelan, James (1996). Narrative as Rhetoric: Technique, Audiences, Ethics, Ideology.
Columbus: Ohio State UP.
Piwowarczyk, Mary Ann (1976). “The Narratee and the Situation of Enunciation: A
Reconsideration of Prince’s Theory.” Genre 9, 161–77.
Prince, Gerald (1971). “Notes towards a Preliminary Categorization of Fictional ‘Nar­
ratees.’” Genre 4, 100–06.
– ([1973] 1980). “Introduction to the Study of the Narratee.” J. P. Tompkins (ed).
Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins UP, 7–25.
– (1980). “Notes on the Text as Reader.” S. R. Suleiman & I. Crosman (eds). The
Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation.. Princeton: Princeton
UP, 225–40.
– (1982). Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin: Mouton.
– (1985). “The Narratee Revisited.” Style 19, 299–303.
Rabinowitz, Peter (1977). “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.” Critical
Inquiry 4, 121–41.
– (1987). Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation.
Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Radway, Janice (1984). Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Lite-
rature. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P.
Richards, I. A. (1929). Practical Criticism: A Study of Literary Judgement. London: K.
Paul, Trench, Trubner.
Richardson, Brian (1997). “The Other Reader’s Response: On Multiple, Divided, and
Oppositional Audiences.” Criticism 39, 31–53.
Riffaterre, Michael (1959). “Criteria for Style Analysis.” Word 15, 154–74.
– (1966). “Describing Poetic Structures: Two Approaches to Baudelaire’s ‘Les
Chats.’” Yale French Studies No 36–37, 200–42.
– (1971). Essais de stylistique structurale. Paris: Flammarion.
– (1978). Semiotics of Poetry. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Rosenblatt, Louise M. (1938). Literature as Exploration. New York: Appleton.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Sartre, Jean-Paul ([1948] 1949). What is Literature? New York: Philosophical Library.
Schmid, Wolf (2007). “Textadressat.” Th. Anz (ed). Handbuch Literaturwissenschaft.
Stuttgart: Metzler, vol. 1, 171–81.
Schneider, Jost (2004). Sozialgeschichte des Lesens. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Schweickart, Patrocinio P. & Elizabeth A. Flynn, eds. (2004). Reading Sites: Social
Difference and Reader Response. New York: Modern Language Association of
America.
Stierle, Karlheinz ([1975] 1980). “The Reading of Fictional Texts.” S. R. Suleiman & I.
Crosman (eds). The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation.
Princeton: Princeton UP, 83–105.
 Reader 410

Suleiman, Susan R. (1980). “Introduction: Varieties of Audience-Oriented Criticism.”

S. R. S. & I. Crosman (eds). The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Inter­
pretatio. Princeton: Princeton UP, 3–45.
Todorov, Tzvetan (1966). “Les Catégories du récit littéraire.” Communications No 8,
125–51.

5.2 Further Reading

Bennett, Andrew, ed. (1995). Readers and Reading. London: Longman.
Corti, Maria ([1976] 1978). An Introduction to Literary Semiotics. Bloomington: India-
na UP.
Culler, Jonathan (1981). The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
– (1982). On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
Eder, Jens (2003). “Narratology and Cognitive Reception Theories.” T. Kindt & H.-H.
Müller (eds). What Is Narratology? Questions and Answers Regarding the Status
of a Theory. Berlin: de Gruyter, 277–301.
Herman, David, ed. (2003). Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences. Stanford:
CSLI Publications.
Ong, Walter J. (1975). “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction.” PMLA: Publica­
tions of the Modern Language Association of America 90, 9–21.
Rosenblatt, Louise M. (1978). The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional The­
ory of the Literary Work. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.
Rousset, Jean (1986). Le Lecteur intime: de Balzac au journal. Paris: Corti.
Smith, Frank (1971). Understanding Reading. Mahwah: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2004.
Suleiman, Susan R. & Inge Crosman, eds. (1980). The Reader in the Text: Essays on
Audience and Interpretation. Princeton: Princeton UP.
Tompkins, Jane P., ed. (1980). Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-
Structuralism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
 Schemata
Catherine Emmott & Marc Alexander

1 Definition

Schemata are cognitive structures representing generic knowledge, i.e.

structures which do not contain information about particular entities,
instances or events, but rather about their general form. Readers use
schemata to make sense of events and descriptions by providing default
background information for comprehension, as it is rare and often un­
necessary for texts to contain all the detail required for them to be fully
understood. Usually, many or even most of the details are omitted, and
readers’ schemata compensate for any gaps in the text. As schemata
represent the knowledge base of individuals, they are often culturally
and temporally specific, and are ordinarily discussed as collective
stores of knowledge shared by prototypical members of a given or as­
sumed community. The term was used in the 1930s in both psychology
and literary theory, but entered wider currency in the 1970s in Artifi­
cial Intelligence research, later being re-incorporated into psychology
and thence into linguistics, within the general area of cognitive science.

2 Explication

The terms used in this area have historically been highly variable and
differ across disciplines. The term “schema” is often used as a super-
ordinate label for a broad range of knowledge structures, including
frames, scenarios, scripts and plans, as described below. “Schema” is
also used as a synonym for “frame” (Minsky 1975) to refer to mental
repre-sentations of objects, settings or situations. A restaurant
schema/frame, for example, would contain information about types of
restaurants, what objects are to be found inside a restaurant, and so on.
The term “scenario” is also sometimes used for situational knowledge
(Sanford & Garrod 1981). A “script” (Schank & Abelson 1977) is a
temporally-ordered schema; it describes a reader’s knowledge of ste­
reotypical goal-oriented event sequences “that define a well-known
situation” (422), so that a restaurant script would contain knowledge of
412 Schemata

the actions and sequence of ordering food, paying bills, and so on. In
addition to a sequence of events, most scripts have further “slots” to
describe the “roles” (customers, waiters, chefs, etc.), “props” (menu,
table, food, money, bill, etc.), “entry conditions” (customer is hungry,
restaurant has food, etc.) and “results” (customer is no longer hungry,
restaurant has less food, etc.) within the script. A “plan” (Schank &
Abelson 1977) consists of knowledge about sets of actions needed to
accomplish objectives and is used in non-stereotypical situations where
there is no adequate script available.
Linguists, psychologists and narrative scholars employ schema the­
ory to account for the interpretation of a text where the discourse itself
does not provide all the information necessary for the discourse to be
processed. Consider the following example: “John went to a restaurant
for lunch. He ordered a salad, had a coffee and then went to the park
for a walk.” This short text cannot describe all the actions, activities
and situational information which a reader requires to comprehend it.
Schemata and scripts supply the gaps in reader knowledge (that, for ex­
ample, a restaurant is a place which serves food, that food once ordered
is supplied, and that one must pay before leaving). The general notion
of gap-filling has long been recognized in literary studies. Ingarden
(1931) refers to “spots of indeterminacy,” an idea later adopted by Iser
(1976), and Sternberg (1978, 1985) discusses “expositional gaps.” Re­
search in Artificial Intelligence on schemata adds a detailed explana­
tion of how inferences are made by utilizing generic knowledge in pro­
cessing specific parts of a text. As schemata are situational and so­
cioculturally dependent, some readers may supply more information
from their schemata than others.
Schemata are therefore essential for establishing the → coherence
of a text. Furthermore, schemata are dynamic (Schank 1982) to the ex­
tent that they accumulate details and are altered in the course of experi­
ence. If changing circumstances and new events contradict existing
schemata or make them appear inadequate in a relatively minor way,
they can be “tuned” (Rumelhart 1980: 52) to accommodate new gener­
alizations. The relationship between texts and schemata is two-way:
while schemata tend to lay the ground rules for how a discourse will be
interpreted, discourses themselves may prompt readers to “tune” exist­
ing schemata and create new ones (Rumelhart & Norman 1978; Cook
1994: 182–84).
 Schemata 413

3 History of the Concept and its Study

Some schema researchers (e.g. Cook 1994; Semino 1997) trace the
philosophical notion of schemata back to Immanuel Kant. Another
antecedent is Gestalt theory in psychology (Wertheimer 1923, 1925;
Köhler 1930; Koffka 1935). Also in psychology, Bartlett (1932) used
the term (which he credits to the earlier work of the neurologist Sir
Henry Head) to explain speakers’ unknowing alteration of folktale de­
tails during retellings, with such alterations being made in line with the
speakers’ schemata. In literary theory in the 1930s, Ingarden (1931) ar­
gued that there was a stratum of “schematized aspects” in the percep­
tion of literary works of art. After a lull of many years, schema theory
re-emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, when schemata were refined within
Artificial Intelligence as mental constructs of knowledge derived from
an individual’s experience and learning (in this sense often called
“frames,” e.g. Minsky 1975). While scripts were first identified by
Schank & Abelson (1977), the focus of their work was mainly on com­
putational aspects of comprehension. Bower et al. (1979) then provided
evidence within cognitive psychology that readers employed scripts
during their processing of a discourse. Later, Schank (1982) employed
scripts in more detail as dynamic tools for discourse processing, break­
ing scripts down into component parts (Memory Organization Packets,
MOPs) which could be combined into larger structures when required.
In narrative studies, schema theory has been important not only for
its role in explaining gap-filling in reading, as discussed above, but also
in relation to a reader’s knowledge of the overall structure of stories,
termed “story schemata” (e.g. Rumelhart 1975; Mandler & Johnson
1977; Mandler 1984), the cognitive equivalent of text-based story
grammars. According to their proponents, story schemata contain sets
of expectations about how stories will continue, although some psy-
chologists (e.g. Black & Wilensky 1979; Johnson-Laird 1983) have
questioned whether special cognitive structures are required beyond
general reasoning. Knowledge of the form of texts has also been stud­
ied in the analysis of “super-coherence,” de Beaugrande’s (1987) term
for thematic awareness, in postulating schemata for specific genres
(Fludernik 1996; Herman 2002) and in the examination of knowledge
of intertextual links (Eco 1984; Genette 1982).
Schema theory has also been used to construct new theories about
the nature of narrative. Fludernik (1996) employs it to redefine nar­
rativity (→ narrativity), suggesting that cognitive parameters which are
“constitutive of prototypical human experience” (12) are the main cri­
teria for what makes a story a story, not action sequences as tradition­
414 Schemata

ally thought. In her model, “there can therefore be narratives without

plot, but there cannot be any narratives without a human (anthropo­
morphic) experiencer” (13). Herman (2002: 85–6) defines “narrative­
hood,” his term for the difference between narratives and non-narra-
tives, using scripts. As scripts represent only stereotypical and expect-
ed information, the gaps in a text which a script can supply are not
unique and hence do not produce narratives in their own right. By con­
trast, where a gap cannot be filled by stereotypical information, it “fo­
cus[es] attention on the unusual and the remarkable” (90) and requires
a narrative explanation. For Herman, narrativehood is a binary distinc­
tion in contrast to the scalar nature of narrativity, the property of being
more or less prototypically a narrative. He argues (91) that maximal
narrativity is achieved by balancing the appropriate amount of “canon­
icity and breach,” using Bruner’s (1991) terms. If the majority of
events in a story are too stereotypical, they will be untellable and/or un­
interesting, but if events are too unusual, the text may not readily be
interpreted as a story. Hühn & Kiefer (2005) use the term “eventful­
ness” for deviations from scripts, viewing these deviations as both un­
expected events and instances when an expected event does not occur
(→ event and eventfulness). For them, deviations must be judged by
viewing sequences in the context of cultural and historical factors, us­
ing schemata to assess the degree of deviation.
Another important theoretical contribution of schema theory lies in
discussions of literariness. Cook (1994) has defined “literariness” as
“discourse deviation,” stating that a narrative acquires literary status
when it “bring[s] about a change in the schemata of a reader” (182).
Cook sees literary discourse as “schema refreshing,” meaning that old
schemata may be destroyed, new ones constructed and that new con­
nections may be made between existing schemata (191), in contrast to
“schema preserving” or “schema reinforcing” forms of discourse. His
theory echoes the Russian formalist idea of defamiliarization as an es­
sential aspect of literary writing and comprehending. Cook’s definition
is controversial because texts which are not literary may nevertheless
disrupt existing schemata, as Cook himself admits (47, 192) in relation
to journalism, science writing and conversation. In addition, Semino
(1997: 175) argues that literary texts can both challenge and confirm
existing beliefs, suggesting a scale of schema refreshment for those
which are challenging. This does, however, depend on the historical
period: during medieval times, confirmation seems to have dominated,
whereas in modern times deviation is generally more prominent (see
Lotman’s [(1970) 1977: 288–96] concepts of “aesthetics of identity
and opposition”). Jeffries (2001), though, highlights the extent to
 Schemata 415

which particular sub-cultures nowadays may still delight in “schema af­

firmation,” her term for a reader’s “thrill of recognition” of familiar ex­
perience in literary texts. A different perspective on the role of
schemata is provided by Miall (1989), who argues that it is a reader’s
emotions that primarily help the reader make sense of a defamiliarizing
literary text, suggesting that affect is primary in reading and that emo­
tions drive the construction of new schemata rather than being an after-
effect of cognitive processing.
One major use of schema theory has been in the description of
“mind style” (Fowler 1986) by stylisticians, who use linguistic analysis
to study the thought representations of characters who have difficulty
comprehending the world around them, such as primitive humans, the
mentally impaired, and those alien to a culture (see Semino 2006 for a
summary). Often the technique used by writers is to under-specify
(Emmott 2006) the references to key aspects of the focalizing charac­
ter’s context so that the character’s lack of understanding is conveyed,
but nevertheless writers still need to give readers enough clues to con­
strue the situation by using familiar schemata. Palmer (2004) goes be-
yond the focus on special types of mind style by suggesting that all fic­
tional minds need to be cognitively constructed by means of “continu­
ing-consciousness frames” in order to bring together diverse mentions
of the thoughts of individual characters and groups of characters
throughout a story.
In addition to the above theoretical and descriptive uses, the notion
of schemata has an extremely wide range of applications in narrative
studies. In feminist stylistics, Mills (1995: 187–94), has used it to chal­
lenge the sexist schemata that she claims are needed to read some liter­
ary texts written by men. In humor studies, oddly incongruous frames
are often regarded as the source of humor (e.g. Semino 1997; Hidalgo-
Downing 2000; Simpson 2003). In detective and mystery stories, clues
can be buried by making descriptions heavily schema consistent, then
subsequently highlighted by adding information over and above the
schema (Alexander 2006; Emmott et al. forthcoming). In the analysis
of science fiction (Stockwell 2003) and absurdist texts (Semino 1997;
Hidalgo-Downing 2000), schema theory can explain how alternative
and bizarre worlds are created. In educational psychology, schemata
and scripts explain how children develop their storytelling and compre­
hension skills (e.g. McCabe & Peterson eds. 1991). In film studies
(→ narration in film), schema theory has been used in discussions of
text coherence, genre, and character construction (Bordwell 1989: 129–
95; Branigan 1992: 1–32). This list is not intended to be comprehen-
416 Schemata

sive, but gives an indication of the importance of schema theory across

a number of areas.
In recent years, the emphasis within the cognitive study of narrative
has shifted somewhat (→ cognitive narratology). Schema theory is still
viewed as important, but there has been a growing interest in how a
reader needs to supplement general knowledge with the knowledge ac­
cumulated from the text itself. So readers will normally gather together
a large store of information about characters and contexts as they read
a text. Emmott (1997) calls this “text-specific knowledge” and argues
that readers must not only build mental representations (termed “con­
textual frames”) using this knowledge, but update these representations
where necessary and utilize the information at later stages in a text.
Similar ideas can be found in Gerrig’s (1993) examination of narrative
worlds, Werth’s (1999) text world theory, and Herman’s (2002) study
of storyworlds.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) The inter-relation between schema knowledge and other knowledge

(e.g. expert, autobiographical, and text world knowledge) needs to be
explored further and built into an overall model with empirical testing
of texts which are more complex than traditional psychological and Ar­
tificial Intelligence materials. (b) More psychological research is
needed to establish how generic knowledge derived from the real world
is utilized in building counterfactual worlds, since the findings from
current empirical work are not consistent (Nieuwland & van Berkum
2006; Ferguson & Sanford 2008). (c) There needs to be additional in­
vestigation of how readers use schemata similarly or differently in
reading factual and fictional texts. (d) Frames based on “intertextual
knowledge” (Eco 1984; Genette 1982) need further empirical study.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Alexander, Marc (2006). Cognitive-Linguistic Manipulation and Persuasion in Agatha
Christie, M.Phil. thesis. Glasgow: U of Glasgow.
Bartlett, Frederick C. (1932). Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psy­
chology. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Black, John B. & Robert Wilensky (1979). “An Evaluation of Story Grammars.” Cog­
nitive Science 3, 213–30.
 Schemata 417

Bordwell, David (1989). Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpreta­
tion of Cinema. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Bower, Gordon, John B. Black & Terrence J. Turner (1979). “Scripts in Memory for
Text.” Cognitive Psychology 11, 177–220.
Branigan, David (1992). Narrative Comprehension and Film. London: Routledge.
Bruner, Jerome (1991). “The Narrative Construction of Reality.” Critical Inquiry 18,
1–21.
Cook, Guy (1994). Discourse and Literature: The Interplay of Form and Mind. Ox­
ford: Oxford UP.
de Beaugrande, Robert (1987). “Schemas for Literary Communication.” L. Halász (ed).
Literary Discourse: Aspects of Cognitive and Social Psychological Approaches.
Berlin: de Gruyter, 49–99.
Eco, Umberto (1984). The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts.
Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Emmott, Catherine (1997). Narrative Comprehension: A Discourse Perspective. Ox­
ford: Oxford UP.
– (2006). “Reference: Stylistic Aspects.” K. Brown (ed). Encyclopedia of Language
and Linguistics, 2nd edition. Oxford: Elsevier, vol. 10, 441–50.
– Anthony J. Sanford & Marc Alexander (forthcoming). “Scenarios, Role Assump­
tions, and Character Status: Readers’ Expectations and Writers’ Manipulations of
Expectations in Narrative Texts.” F. Jannidis, R. Schneider & Jens Eder (eds).
Characters in Fictional Worlds: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Ferguson, Heather J. & Anthony J. Sanford (2008). “Anomalies in Real and Counter­
factual Worlds: An Eye-Movement Investigation.” Journal of Memory and Lan­
guage 58, 609–26.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
Fowler, Roger ([1986] 1996). Linguistic Criticism. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Genette, Gérard ([1982] 1997). Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
Gerrig, Richard J. (1993). Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Acti-
vities of Reading. New Haven: Yale UP.
Herman, David (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
Hidalgo-Downing, Laura (2000). Negation, Text Worlds, and Discourse: The Pragmat­
ics of Fiction. Stamford: Ablex.
Hühn, Peter & Jens Kiefer (2005). The Narratological Analysis of Lyric Poetry: Stu-
dies in English Poetry from the 16th to the 20th Century. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Ingarden, Roman ([1931] 1973). The Literary Work of Art: An Investigation on the
Borderlines of Ontology, Logic and Theory of Literature. Evanston: Northwestern
UP.
Iser, Wolfgang ([1976] 1978). The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Jeffries, Lesley (2001). “Schema Theory and White Asparagus: Cultural Multilingual­
ism among Readers of Texts.” Language and Literature 10, 325–43.
Johnson-Laird, Philip (1983). Mental Models. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
418 Schemata

Koffka, Kurt (1935). Principles of Gestalt Psychology. London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner.
Köhler, Wolfgang (1930). Gestalt Psychology. London: Bell.
Lotman, Jurij ([1970] 1977). The Structure of the Artistic Text. Ann Arbor: U of Michi-
gan P.
Mandler, Jean M. (1984). Scripts, Stories and Scenes: Aspects of Schema Theory.
Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
– & Nancy S. Johnson (1977). “Remembrance of Things Parsed: Story Structure and
Recall.” Cognitive Psychology 9, 111–51.
McCabe, Allyssa & Carole Peterson, eds. (1991). Developing Narrative Structure.
Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Miall, David S. (1989). “Beyond the Schema Given: Affective Comprehension of Lite-
rary Narratives.” Cognition and Emotion 3, 55–78.
Mills, Sara (1995). Feminist Stylistics. London: Routledge.
Minsky, Marvin (1975). “A Framework for Representing Knowledge.” P. H. Winston
(ed). The Psychology of Computer Vision. New York: McGraw-Hill, 211–77.
Nieuwland, Mante S. & Jos J. A. van Berkum (2006). “When Peanuts Fall in Love:
N400 Evidence for the Power of Discourse.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
19, 1098–111.
Palmer, Alan (2004). Fictional Minds. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Rumelhart, David E. (1975). “Notes on a Schema for Stories.” D. G. Bobrow & A. Col-
lins (eds). Representation and Understanding: Studies in Cognitive Science. New
York: Academic P, 211–35.
– (1980). “Schemata: The Building Blocks of Cognition.” R. Spiro, B. Bruce & W.
Brewer (eds). Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension. Hillsdale: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 33–58.
– & Donald A. Norman (1978). “Accretion, Tuning and Restructuring: Three Modes
of Learning.” J. W. Cotton & R. Klatzky (eds). Semantic Factors in Cognition.
Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum, 37–53.
Sanford, Anthony J. & Simon C. Garrod (1981). Understanding Written Language:
Explorations in Comprehension Beyond the Sentence. Chichester: Wiley.
Schank, Roger C. (1982). Dynamic Memory: A Theory of Reminding and Learning.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
– & Robert P. Abelson (1977). Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding. Hillsdale:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Semino, Elena (1997). Language and World Creation in Poems and Other Texts. Lon­
don: Longman.
– (2006). “Mind Style.” K. Brown (ed). Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics,
2nd edition. Oxford: Elsevier, vol. 8, 142–8.
Simpson, Paul (2003). On the Discourse of Satire: Towards a Stylistic Model of Satir­
ical Humour. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Sternberg, Meir (1978). Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction. Bal­
timore: Johns Hopkins UP.
– (1985). The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of
Reading. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
 Schemata 419

Stockwell, Peter (2003). “Schema Poetics and Speculative Cosmology.” Language and
Literature 12.3, 252–71.
Werth, Paul (1999). Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. Lon­
don: Longman.
Wertheimer, Max ([1923] 1938). “Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms.” W. D.
Ellis (ed). A Source Book of Gestalt Psychology. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 71–88.
– ([1925] 1938). “Gestalt Theory.” W. D. Ellis (ed). A Source Book of Gestalt
Psychology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1–11.

5.2 Further Reading

Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative
Theory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Semino, Elena (2001). “On Readings, Literariness and Schema Theory: A Reply to
Jeffries.” Language and Literature 10, 345–55.
Stockwell, Peter (2006). “Schema Theory: Stylistic Applications.” K. Brown (ed). En­
cyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed. Oxford: Elsevier, vol. 11, 8–73.

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council
for funding for this work, which was conducted as part of the STACS
Project (Stylistics, Text Analysis and Cognitive Science: Interdisciplin­
ary Perspectives on the Nature of Reading).
 Space
Marie-Laure Ryan

1 Definition

Kantian philosophy regards time and space as the two fundamental cat­
egories that structure human experience. Narrative is widely recog­
nized as the discourse of human experience (Fludernik 1996); yet most
definitions, by characterizing stories as the representation of a se­
quence of events, foreground time at the expense of space. Events,
however, are changes of state that affect individuated existents, which
are themselves bodies that both occupy space and are situated in space.
Representations of space are not necessarily narratives—think of geo­
graphical maps, landscape paintings, etc.—but all narratives imply a
world with spatial extension, even when spatial information is withheld
(as in Forster’s: “The king died, and then the queen died of grief”). The
inseparability of space and time in narrative is suggested, among other
ideas, by Baxtin’s (1938) polysemic concept of chronotope, by Werth’s
(1999) “text world,” by Herman’s (2005) “storyworld,” and by Ge-
nette’s (1972) “diégèse.” All of these concepts cover both the space-oc­
cupying existents and the temporally extending events (→ event and
eventfulness) referred to by narrative discourse.
When speaking of space in narratology and other fields, a distinc­
tion should be made between literal and metaphorical uses of the
concept. As an a-priori form of intuition, space is particularly difficult
to capture in its literal sense. The OED defines it, somewhat tautologi-
cally (since it uses the spatial concept “within”), as “the dimensions of
height, width and depth within which all things exist.” The Cambridge
Dictionary of Philosophy’s more mathematical definition avoids tautol-
ogy, but its greater abstraction does not capture our intuitive sense of
space as the universal container of things: “An extended manifold of
several dimensions, where the number of dimensions corresponds to
the number of variable magnitudes needed to specify the location in the
manifold” (DiSalle [1996] 1999: 866–67).
Many of the spatial concepts developed in literary and cognitive
theory (→ cognitive narratology) are metaphorical because they fail to
421 Space

account for physical existence. Among such uses are Fauconnier’s

(1985) mental spaces, which are constellations of meanings held to­
gether in the mind; his notion of mapping (1997), whose origin in the
visual representation of space has been overshadowed by its extension
to any kind of analogical thinking; Friedman’s “spatial reading” of nar­
rative (1993), an approach which she describes as paying attention not
only to a “horizontal axis” of plot, but also to a “vertical axis” standing
for a variety of other literary dimensions: author-reader relations, liter­
ary-historical considerations, and intertextual allusions. Turner’s con-
cept of “spatial stories” (1996) is metaphorical for another reason: the
term designates expressions based on space-implying movements (e.g.
“the stockmarket sank”) and it is “story” rather than “spatial” that func­
tions metaphorically.

2 Explication

The importance of the concept of space for narratology is not limited to

the representation of a world (a notion to be refined below) serving as
container for existents and as location for events. We can distinguish at
least four forms of textual spatiality. Of these four forms, the first will
be the main focus of this entry.

2.1 Narrative Space

This is the physically existing environment in which characters live

and move (Buchholz & Jahn 2005). We may call it “setting,” but this
intuitive notion of setting needs to be further refined: just as, in the
theater, we can distinguish the stage on which events are shown from
the broader world alluded to by the characters, in written narrative we
can distinguish the individual locations in which narratively significant
events take place from the total space implied by these events (Ronen
1986). Since there is no established terminology to distinguish the lam­
inations of narrative space, I will synthesize existing work through the
following categories, illustrating them all with the short story “Eve-
line” by James Joyce.
(a) Spatial frames: the immediate surroundings of actual events, the
various locations shown by the narrative discourse or by the image (cf.
Ronen’s [1986] “settings”; Zoran’s [1984] “fields of vision”). Spatial
frames are shifting scenes of action, and they may flow into each other:
e.g. a “salon” frame can turn into a “bedroom” frame as the characters
move within a house. They are hierarchically organized by relations of
containment (a room is a subspace of a house), and their boundaries
 Space 422

may be either clear-cut (the bedroom is separated from the salon by a

hallway) or fuzzy (e.g. a landscape may slowly change as a character
moves through it). Examples of spatial frames in “Eveline” are the liv­
ing room of Eveline’s house and the Dublin harbor.
(b) Setting: the general socio-historico-geographical environment in
which the action takes place. In contrast to spatial frames, this is a rela-
tively stable category which embraces the entire text. We may for in­
stance say that the setting of “Eveline” is early 20th-century lower-
middle-class Dublin.
(c) Story space: the space relevant to the plot, as mapped by the ac­
tions and thoughts of the characters. It consists of all the spatial frames
plus all the locations mentioned by the text that are not the scene of ac­
tually occurring events. In “Eveline,” the story space comprises not
only Eveline’s house and the Dublin harbor, but also South America,
where Eveline dreams of escaping with her lover.
(d) Narrative (or story) world: the story space completed by the
reader’s imagination on the basis of cultural knowledge and real world
experience (cf. Ryan’s [1991] principle of minimal departure). While
story space consists of selected places separated by voids, the narrative
world is conceived by the imagination as a coherent, unified, ontologi-
cally full and materially existing geographical entity, even when it is a
fictional world that possesses none of these properties (→ fictional vs.
factual narration). In Eveline’s world, we assume that Dublin and
South America are separated by the Atlantic, even though the ocean is
not mentioned by name. In a story that refers to both real and imag­
inary locations, the narrative world superimposes the locations specific
to the text onto the geography of the actual world. In a story that takes
place in wholly imaginary landscapes (e.g. Lord of the Rings), readers
assume that the narrative world extends beyond the locations named in
the text and that there is continuous space between them, even though
they cannot fill out this space with geographic features.
(e) Narrative universe: the world (in the spatio-temporal sense of
the term) presented as actual by the text, plus all the counterfactual
worlds constructed by characters as beliefs, wishes, fears, speculations,
hypothetical thinking, dreams, and fantasies. The narrative universe of
“Eveline” contains one world where she boards a ship to South Ameri-
ca and lives happily ever after with her lover, and another where she is
emotionally unable to leave Dublin. For a possible world to be part of
the metaphorical concept of narrative universe, it must be textually ac­
tivated (e.g. the world where Eveline becomes Queen of England does
not belong to the narrative universe of the story because it is never
mentioned or presupposed by the text).
423 Space

All of these levels are described here from a static perspective as the
final products of interpretation, but they are progressively disclosed to
the reader through the temporal unfolding of the text. We may call the
dynamic presentation of spatial information the textualization of space
(cf. Zoran’s “textual level” of space). This textualization becomes a
narrativization when space is not described for its own sake, as it
would be in a tourist guide, but becomes the setting of an action that
develops in time.

2.2 The Spatial Extension of the Text

Chatman (1978: 96–107) proposes a distinction between “story space”

and “discourse space” through which he tries to transpose into the spa­
tial domain the well justified distinction between “story time” (“the
duration of the purported events of the narrative”) and “discourse time”
(“the time it takes to peruse the discourse”; 62). “Discourse time” is a
useful concept because language (or film) is a temporal medium. But
Chatman’s notion of “discourse space” does not involve space in the
same way as “discourse time” involves time, for it does not concern the
space physically occupied by narrative discourse but, rather, describes
the disclosure by discourse of the space in which the story takes place
(3.2). The concept of “spatial extension of the text” offers a more satis­
factory spatial correlate of the notion of “discourse time,” since it
refers to the spatiality of the text as material object and to the dimen­
sionality of the interface to with the reader, spectator or user. Spatial
extension ranges from zero spatial dimensions (oral narratives, exclud­
ing gestures and facial expressions; music) to quasi one-dimensionality
(a text displayed on a single line with letters moving from right to left,
as in television news lines, electronic billboards, and some digital lit-
erary texts), two-dimensionality (printed narratives, film, painting) all
the way to genuine three-dimensionality (theatre, ballet, sculpture)
(→ narration in various media).
Particularly relevant to narrative is the organization of two-dimen­
sional space. Topics of interest include the integration of text into im­
age and the division of time into distinct frames in comics and cartoons
(McCloud 1993); the integration of image into text in illustrated books;
and the “hypermediated displays” (i.e. distribution of information into
separate windows) of newspapers, avant-garde fiction, Web pages, and
digital narratives, especially computer games (Bolter & Grusin 1999).
In pictorial narratives, the study of spatial organization distinguishes
paintings that capture a single moment, leaving it to the spectator to re­
construct the temporal sequence that makes it part of a story (cf.
 Space 424

Lessing’s notion of “pregnant moment”), from images that distribute

narrative content into multiple scenes separated from each other by
framing devices, such as architectural features (Steiner 1988).

2.3 The Space that Serves as Context and Container for the Text

Narratives are not only inscribed on spatial objects, they are also sit-
uated within real-world space, and their relations to their environment
go far beyond mimetic representation. When a nonfictional story is told
where it happened, gestures and deictic elements may be used to point
to the actual location of events. By telling us how certain striking land­
scape features came into being or what happened on certain sites, nar­
ratives of myth, legend and oral history build a “spirit” of place, what
the Romans called genius loci. In aboriginal Australia, stories, known
as song lines, marked salient landscape features and helped people re­
member routes through what may look to outsiders as a monotonous
desert. Another form of spatial situatedness for narrative are museum
commentaries transmitted though earphones: each part of the text
relates to a certain object, and users must coordinate playing the tape
with their own progression through the space of the exhibit. With his­
torical landscapes, memorial areas or heritage sites, the spatial situation
of the narrative corresponds to the real-world location of the commem­
orated events, and the design of the visitor’s tour must take into consid­
eration the constraints of historical reality (Azaryahu & Foote 2008).
More recently, GPS and wireless technology have made it possible to
create stories on mobile phones, attach them to particular geographic
locations, upload them on the Internet, and make them accessible only
to people who happen to be in the right place (Ryan 2003a). Whereas
ordinary print narratives are nomadic texts that can be taken anywhere
because they describe absent objects, the new digital technologies re­
connect stories with physical space by creating texts that must be read
in the presence of their referent.

2.4 The Spatial Form of the Text

The term “spatial form” was introduced by the literary critic Frank
(1945) to describe a type of narrative organization characteristic of
modernism that deemphasizes temporality and causality through com­
positional devices such as fragmentation, montage of disparate ele­
ments, and juxtaposition of parallel plot lines. The notion of spatial
form can be extended to any kind of design formed by networks of se­
mantic, phonetic or more broadly thematic relations between non-adja­
cent textual units. When the notion of space refers to a formal pattern,
425 Space

it is taken in a metaphorical sense, since it is not a system of dimen­

sions that determines physical position, but a network of analogical or
oppositional relations perceived by the mind. It is the synchronic per­
spective necessitated for the perception of these designs and the tend­
ency to associate the synchronic with the spatial that categorizes them
as spatial phenomena.
In digital texts, the notion of spatial design rests upon the hyperlink,
a machine-language command that instructs the computer to display a
certain fragment of text in response to a certain user action: clicking on
specially marked buttons. Rather than forming a synchronically per­
ceived pattern, digital links are navigational tools that control the tem­
poral unfolding of the text. Yet hypertext narratives have been widely
described as spatial (Bolter 1991) because the multiple connections
between textual units prevent a linear progression through the text and
thus disturb the chronological presentation of the story.

3 History of Approaches to Narrative Space

3.1 Spatial Imagery

The study of spatial imagery was pioneered by Bachelard’s Poetics of

Space (1957). Despite its title, this work is not a systematic study of
how literature represents space, but a highly personal meditation on
certain images that “resonate” in the imagination of the author, conjur­
ing a quasi-mystical sense of connectedness to the environment and of
the presence of things. In recent years, the study of spatial imagery has
become increasingly focused on the basic spatial → schemata that un­
derlie language and cognition. As early as 1970, Lotman argued that
“the language of spatial relations” is a “basic means for comprehending
reality” ([1970] 1977: 218). He showed that in literary texts, especially
poetry, spatial oppositions such as high and low, right-left, near-far or
open-closed are invested with non-spatial meaning, such as valuable-
non-valuable, good-bad, accessible-inaccessible, or mortal-immortal.
While Lotman concentrates on verbal art, Lakoff & Johnson (1980)
and Turner (1996) focus their attention on spatial metaphors frozen
into ordinary language. True to phenomenologist doctrine, these au­
thors believe that the most fundamental human experience consists of
apprehending oneself as a body located in space. The embodied nature
of mind is reflected in language by families of metaphors that con­
cretize abstract concepts in terms of bodies moving through or situated
in space. Words like up and down, front and back, high and low, organ­
ize space using the body as point of reference. Due to the erect position
 Space 426

of the body, up and down are the most prolific sources of metaphors:
e.g. happy is up, sad is down; more is up, less is down; etc. Front and
back are mainly used as metaphors of time: in our culture, the future is
ahead and the past is behind. Other spatial schemata that provide im­
portant sources of metaphors are the conduit, the journey, the path, and
the container (space as a whole can be seen as a container). Though
these approaches are not specifically narratological, they can be ap­
plied to narrative texts as well as to poetry or to language in general. A
case in point is Dannenberg’s (2008) study of the spatial schemata of
the portal and the container in narrative scenes that involve the recogni­
tion of identity. On a meta-narrative level, the blending of two common
metaphors, “life is a story” and “life is a journey,” produces a wide­
spread spatial conceptualization of narrative as a journey (Mikkonen
2007).

3.2 The Textualization of Space

The various techniques of space presentation (→ perspective) give

flesh and shape to the visualizations that immerse the reader in the nar­
rative world. Though description is often regarded by text typologists
as the antithesis of narration, it is also the major discourse strategy for
the disclosure of spatial information. In description, the report of the
narrative action is temporarily suspended to afford the reader a more or
less detailed glimpse at the current spatial frame. This interruption can,
however, be minimized by more dynamic ways of constructing narra-
tive space such as object or character movements (“he left his house,
and turned right toward the harbor”); characters’ perceptions (“from
the balcony, a tree blocked her view”); narrativized descriptions (e.g.
revealing the floor plan of a house by describing the building process);
and implications from reports of events (“the bullet missed its target,
crossed the town square and broke a window of the church”). Zubin &
Hewitt’s (1995) notion of deictic shift explains how narratives trans­
port the reader’s imagination from the “here and now” of the illo­
cutionary act—the normal reference of deictic expression—to the place
and time of the narrated scene. Through effects of zooming in and out,
narrative texts may vary the distance between the observer’s spatial
situation and the narrated events, and through shifts in focus, they can
move objects of description from the foreground to the background or
vice versa (Herman 2002: 274–77). Perspective itself, as Uspenskij
([1970] 1973: 57–65) observes, is a particular positioning of the narra-
tor within the story space; this positioning may coincide with the loca­
tion of a specific character whose movements are followed by the nar­
427 Space

rator, or it may move across a certain area that contains several charac­
ters as the focus of the discourse alternates between different individu­
als. In film (→ narration in film), the presentation of space encounters
the problem of giving the spectator a sense of what lies beyond what is
framed by the current screen, and of how the individual frames are in­
terconnected. This can be done through techniques such as panning and
zooming, mounting a camera on a moving support, providing a shot es­
tablishing a general location before zooming in, or showing the same
location in a shot-reverse shot sequence from the perspective of differ­
ent characters.
On the macro-level, spatial information can be organized according
to two basic strategies: the map and the tour (Linde & Labov 1975),
also known as the survey and the route. In the map strategy, space is
represented panoramically from a perspective ranging from the disem­
bodied god’s eye point of view of pure vertical projection to the pano-
ramic view of an observer situated on an elevated point. In this mode of
presentation, space is divided into segments and the text covers them in
systematic fashion, e.g. left to right, north to south, front to back. The
tour strategy, by contrast, represents space dynamically from a mobile
point of view. Thus an apartment will for instance be described room
by room, following the itinerary of somebody who is showing the
apartment. In contrast to the pure vision of the map view, the tour sim­
ulates the embodied experience of a traveler. Of the two strategies, the
tour is the more common in narrative fiction, although some postmod­
ern texts have experimented with the map view: e.g. Georges Perec’s
La Vie mode d’emploi describes the parallel lives of the inhabitants of
an apartment building by jumping across the building as if the narrator
were a knight on a chessboard—a strategy that presupposes a map-like
vertical projection—rather than creating a natural walkthrough.
As readers or spectators progress through the narrative text, they
gather spatial information into a cognitive map or mental model of nar­
rative space (Ryan 2003b). Through a feed-back loop effect, these
mental models, which are built to a large extent on the basis of the
movements of characters, enable readers to visualize these movements
within a containing space. Mental maps, in other words, are both dy­
namically constructed in the course of reading and consulted by the
reader to orient himself in the narrative world. The various landmarks
shown or mentioned in the story are made into a coherent world
through an awareness of the relations that situate them with respect to
each other. To understand events, the reader may for instance need to
know that the hero’s house is located on the town square and close to
the harbor. But media that temporalize the release of information, such
 Space 428

as language and film, do not facilitate the mental construction of spatial

relations because, unlike paintings or the stage setting of drama, they
display objects successively rather than simultaneously. A mental mod­
el of narrative space is a construct held in long-term memory, but it is
built from images of individual spatial frames that replace each other in
short-term memory. This explains why readers are not always able to
situate individual frames within the narrative world. But a mental map
does not have to be nearly as consistent as a graphic map in its repre-
sentation of spatial relations. While some locations need to be precisely
situated with respect to each other because they are the stage of events
that involve space in a strategic way, others may occupy free-floating
positions in the reader’s mind. In many cases, readers will be able to
understand stories with only a rudimentary representation of their glob­
al geography because, as Schneider (2001) observes, space in narrative
usually serves as a background for characters and their actions, and not
as a focus of interest. When topography is of prime importance for the
logic of the plot, as it may be in detective fiction, the limitations of lan­
guage as a medium of spatial representation can be remediated by a
graphic map of the narrative world. Another function of graphic maps,
particularly prominent in children’s narratives, travel stories and fan-
tastic literature, is to spare the reader the effort of building a cognitive
map, thereby facilitating the mental visualizations that produce immer­
sion.

3.3 The Thematization of Space

An important aspect of the cognitive mapping of narrative texts is the

attribution of symbolic meaning to the various regions and landmarks
of the narrative world. This meaning should not be considered a meta­
phorization of the concept of space, since it is attached to specific areas
of the narrative world, contrary to spatial metaphors, which suppress
connections to particular territories. In the cosmology of archaic socie-
ties, space is ontologically divided into a profane world, the realm of
everyday life, and a sacred world, inhabited by supernatural beings,
with holy sites functioning as portals between the two. The narrative
response to these cosmologies and topologies is a symbolic geography
diversified into regions where different events and experiences take
place—where life, in other words, is governed by different physical,
psychological, social or cultural rules. In fairy tales or computer games,
for instance, the symbolic map of the narrative world may associate the
castle with power, mountain tops with confrontations between the for-
ces of good and evil, open areas with danger, closed areas with securi-
429 Space

ty, etc. This symbolic organization of space is not limited to fantastic

texts: narrative worlds can be structured by oppositions between col-
onizing countries and colonized regions; between town and country
(Tolstoj’s Anna Karenina); between life in the capital and life in the
province (Balzac’s Comédie Humaine); between home and away from
home (The Odyssey); between the knowable and the unknowable (the
town vs. the castle in Kafkas’ Das Schloss); or between landscapes that
speak differently to the imagination (Swann’s vs. Guermantes’ way in
Proust’s À La Recherche du temps perdu). According to Lotman, nar­
rative is born when a character crosses the boundary between these
symbolically charged spaces: “A plot can always be reduced to a basic
episode—the crossing of the basic topological border in the plot’s spa­
tial structure” ([1970] 1977: 238).
Architecturally as well as plot-functionally, narrative space can be
described in terms of the partitions, both natural and cultural, that or­
ganize it into thematically relevant subspaces: walls, hallways, political
boundaries, rivers and mountains, as well as in terms of the openings
and passageways that allow these subspaces to communicate: doors,
windows, bridges, highways, tunnels and passes. Besides horizontal
partitions, narrative can also present vertical ones, corresponding to
what Pavel (1986) calls “salient ontologies”: these ontologies can op­
pose the world of everyday life to a world of magic, dreams to reality,
images to existents or, in narratives with embedded stories, the differ­
ent levels of fictionality. Whereas horizontal partitions divide the geo­
graphy of the narrative world, vertical partitions create ontological lay­
ers within the narrative universe.
The lived experience of space offers a particularly rich source of
thematization. Some stories present space as closed and confining
(prison narratives; Anne Frank’s diary), others as open and liberating
(narratives of exploration; many travel narratives), and still others as
open and alienating (stories of wandering aimlessly in a hostile en­
vironment). Confined space occasionally turns into a field of endless
discoveries, as does Robinson Crusoe’s island. Through its immensity,
space may be perceived as separating (narratives of exile; Odyssey), or
its existence may be denied by technology (telecommunications; travel
through teletransportation). Narrative may also focus on place, a con-
cept commonly opposed to space by geographers, by immersing the
reader in a particular landscape or cityscape. And finally, narratives
may highlight the importance of our sense of embodiment for the ex­
perience of space by featuring a protagonist whose body grows or
shrinks out of human proportions. Novels like Gulliver’s Travels or
Alice in Wonderland de-automatize our relation to space by showing
 Space 430

how movement, navigation, the handling of objects and interpersonal

relations are affected by a change of scale.
The most radical thematizations of space are those that involve al­
ternative or logically inconsistent worlds. While the mind can theore-
tically conceive spaces of any number of dimensions (string theory
postulates 9 or 10, depending on the version), the “imagining imagina­
tion” can only picture objects within a space of three dimensions or
less. An example of experimentation with the dimensionality of space
is Edwin Abbott’s 1884 novella Flatland, a narrative that depicts
everyday life and cognition issues within a world of two dimensions:
how, for instance, do the members of this world distinguish each other,
since the recognition of flat shapes normally involves an elevated point
of view that presupposes a third dimension? The narrator then migrates
to a one-dimensional world, and his puzzlement mirrors the reader’s
experience of two-dimensional reality. He is finally transported into a
three-dimensional world and describes in amazement an experience
that is taken for granted by the members of this world (as well as by the
reader); but when he asks to visit a four-dimensional world, the three-
dimensional creatures tell him that no such thing exists. One way for a
text to circumvent the limitations of the imagination is to project a cos­
mology with multiple parallel worlds. This cosmology, inspired by the
“many-worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics and explored by
many science-fiction texts, does not strain our faculties of mental visu­
alization because every one of the parallel realities is itself a standard
three-dimensional space. By allowing the existence of multiple coun­
terparts of the same individual and by staging transworld travel that al­
low these counterparts to meet, the many-worlds cosmology is a gold­
mine of intriguing narrative situations (Ryan 2006).
Logically impossible story spaces are the narrative equivalent of
M.C. Escher’s pictorial representations of worlds that violate the laws
of perspective. The most common form of logical impossibility in liter­
ature is → metalepsis, the transgression of ontological boundaries
through which imaginary creatures of pen and paper can penetrate into
the fictionally “real” world of their creator, or vice-versa. Metalepsis
can lead to a spatial effect described by Hofstadter (1979: passim) as a
strange loop: rising higher and higher through the levels of a hierarchi-
cal system, only to find oneself right where one began. But a narrative
space cannot be wholly inconsistent, for fear of preventing any kind of
mental representation—for fear, in other words, of losing its spatial
quality. Logical contradiction is normally limited to some areas of the
narrative world, piercing the fabric of space like the holes in a Swiss
cheese. In Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, for instance, a cer­
431 Space

tain house is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and the inside is
the gateway to a seemingly infinite alternative space where horrific
events occur; even so, readers can still draw on their normal experience
of space in some regions of the narrative world, despite its topological
heterogeneity.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

Because narratologists have long privileged time over space, narrative

space remains a relatively unexplored territory. The most promising
areas of investigation appear at the present time to be: (a) the anchoring
of stories in real-world space, as described in section 2.3; (b) the design
of “spatial architectures” (Jenkins 2004) for computer games, allowing
players to participate actively in a story while exploring a fictional
world more or less freely; (c) comparative studies of the medium-spe­
cific techniques that enable people to construct mental images of nar­
rative space; (d) empirical studies of the importance of mental visuali-
zations and cognitive mapping for the understanding of plot and the ex­
perience of immersion; (e) studies of the historical and cultural varia-
bility of the semiotic oppositions (such as “high-low,” “inside-outside,”
“closed-open”) that determine the topology of narrative worlds.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Azaryahu, Maoz & Kenneth E. Foote (2008). “Historical Space as Narrative Medium:
On the Configuration of Spatial Narratives of Time and Historical Sites.” Geo­
Journal 73, 179–94.
Bachelard, Gaston ([1957] 1994). The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at How We
Experience Intimate Places. Boston: Beacon P.
Baxtin, Mixail (Bakhtin, Mikhail) ([1938] 1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Es­
says. Austin: U of Texas P.
Bolter, Jay David (1991). Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of
Writing. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
– & Richard Grusin (1999). Remediations: Understanding New Media. Cambridge:
MIT P.
Buchholz, Sabine & Manfred Jahn (2005). “Space.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge
Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 551–54.
Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and
Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Dannenberg, Hilary (2008). Convergent and Divergent Lives: Plotting Coincidence
and Counterfactuality in Narrative Fiction. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
 Space 432

DiSalle, Robert ([1996] 1999). “Space.” R. Audi (ed). The Cambridge Dictionary of
Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 866–67.
Fauconnier, Gilles (1985). Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural
Language. Cambridge: MIT P.
– (1997). Mapping in Thought and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
Frank, Joseph ([1945] 1991). “Spatial Form in Modern Literature.” J. F. The Idea of
Spatial Form. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP.
Friedman, Susan Stanford (1993). “Spatialization: A Strategy for Reading Narrative.”
Narrative 1, 12–23.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
Herman, David (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
– (2005). “Storyworld.” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative
Theory. London: Routledge, 569–70.
Hofstadter, Douglas (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New
York: Vintage Books.
Jenkins, Henry (2004). “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” N. Wardrip-Fruin et
al. (eds). First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge:
MIT P, 118–30.
Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: U of Chica­
go P.
Linde, Charlotte & William Labov (1975). “Spatial Networks as a Site for the Study of
Language and Thought.” Language 51, 924–39.
Lotman, Jurij M. ([1970] 1977). The Structure of the Artistic Text. Ann Arbor: U of
Michigan P.
McCloud, Scott (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper
Perennials.
Mikkonen, Kai (2007). “The ‘Narrative is Travel’ Metaphor: Between Spatial Sequence
and Open Consequence.” Narrative 15, 286–305.
Pavel, Thomas (1986). Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Ronen, Ruth (1986). “Space in Fiction.” Poetics Today 7, 421–38.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence and Narrative The­
ory. Bloomington: U of Indiana P.
– (2003a). “Cyberspace, Cybertexts, Cybermaps.” Dichtung Digital.
[http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2004/1-Ryan.htm]
– (2003b). “Cognitive Maps and the Construction of Narrative Space.” D. Herman
(ed). Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences. Stanford: CLSI, 214–42.
– (2006). “From Parallel Universes to Possible Worlds: Ontological Pluralism in
Physics, Narratology and Narrative.” Poetics Today 27, 633–74.
Schneider, Ralph (2001). “Towards a Cognitive Theory of Literary Character: The Dy­
namics of Mental-Model Construction.” Style 35, 607–40.
Steiner, Wendy ([1988] 2004). “Pictorial Narrativity.” M.-L. Ryan (ed). Narrative
across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 145–77.
Turner, Mark (1996). The Literary Mind. New York: Oxford UP.
433 Space

Uspenskij, Boris (Uspensky) ([1970] 1973). A Poetics of Composition. Berkeley: U of

California P.
Werth, Paul (1999). Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. Lon­
don: Longman.
Zoran, Gabriel (1984). “Towards a Theory of Space in Fiction.” Poetics Today 5, 309–
35.
Zubin, David A. & Lynne E. Hewitt (1995). “The Deictic Center: A Theory of Deixis
in Narrative.” J. Duchan et al. (eds). Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Per­
spective. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum, 129–55.

5.2 Further Reading

Bridgeman, Teresa (2007). “Time and Space.” D. Herman (ed). The Cambridge Com­
panion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 52–65.
Esrock, Ellen (1994). The Reader’s Eye: Visual Imaging and Reader Response. Bal­
timore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Grishakova, Marina (2006). The Models of Space, Time and Vision in V. Nabokov’s
Fiction: Narrative Strategies and Cultural Frames. Tartu: Tartu UP.
Hamon, Philippe (1993). Du descriptif. Paris: Hachette.
Herman, David (2001). “Spatial Reference in Narrative Domains.” Text 21, 515–41.
Mosher, Harold F. (1991). “Towards a Poetics of Descriptized Narration.” Poetics
Today 12, 425–45.
Nünning, Ansgar (2007). “Towards a Typology, Poetics and History of Description in
Fiction.” W. Wolf & W. Bernhart (eds). Description in Literature and Other Me­
dia. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 91–128.
Ronen, Ruth (1997). “Description, Narrative, and Representation.” Narrative 5, 274–
86.
Zwaan, Rolf A. (1993). Aspects of Literary Comprehension. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
 Speech Representation
Brian McHale

1 Definition

Verbal narrative, it has long been assumed, is especially qualified to

represent speech events because in this case, unlike any other, the ob­
ject and the medium of representation are identical―language. The
speech of characters can be represented directly, through quotation:
“She said, ‘No, no, I can’t just now, but tomorrow I will.’” Or it can be
paraphrased by a narrator and represented indirectly: “She said that she
couldn’t just then, but that the next day she would.” There is also the
option to narrate speech acts in an intermediate mode, called free indi-
rect discourse: “No, no, she couldn’t just now, but tomorrow she
would.” Consciousness, at least that part of it that resembles unspoken
interior speech, can be represented using the same three forms: direct-
ly, as quoted interior monologue; indirectly, as thought report, also
called psycho-narration (cf. Cohn 1978); or using free indirect dis­
course. It has been clear for some time, however, that the three discrete
forms fall far short of exhausting the range of speech representation in
narrative, much less the representation of consciousness, so that anal-
ysts have become increasingly willing to consider more diffuse and
generalized effects of voice (e.g., Baxtin 1934/35) and fictional mind
(e.g. Palmer 2004).

2 Explication

Speech representation in verbal narrative can be conceived in terms of

a relationship between two utterances, a framing utterance and an inset
(framed) utterance (Sternberg 1982), or alternatively in terms of inter­
ference or interaction between two texts, the narrator’s text and the
character’s text. (For further details on the Textinterferenz approach
advocated by Schmid and others, see section 3.3 below.) In direct dis­
course (DD), whether it represents a speech event or an unspoken
thought, the transition from frame to inset is clearly visible, typically
signaled typographically and/or by an introductory verb of speech or
435 Speech Representation

thought: “She said,” “She thought.” DD is conventionally understood

to replicate exactly what the quoted character is supposed to have said
or thought, preserving (for instance) expressive elements of the original
utterance: “No, no.” Of course, the “originality” of direct quotation in
fiction is entirely illusory (Fludernik 1993: 409–14); moreover, so is
the independence of the quoted inset, which is always controlled by the
framing context. DD shorn of its introductory clause, which some call
free direct discourse (FDD), is the basis of interior monologues, and a
staple of modernist novels.
In indirect discourse (ID), the narrator is much more evidently in
control. Here the inset is grammatically subordinated to the framing ut­
terance, with person, tense, and deixis adjusted to conform to those of
the frame. According to some authorities (e.g. Banfield 1982), expres-
sive and dialectal or idiolectal features are excluded from ID, but in
fact such features are well-attested in actual narrative texts (Vološinov
[1929] 1973: 131–2; McHale 1978, 1983). Types and degrees of para­
phrase and summary vary widely in ID, from instances that appear
quite faithful to the original utterance (though of course, no such “ori­
ginal” exists), through instances that preserve only its content or gist to
those that minimally acknowledge that a speech event took place
(Vološinov [1929] 1973: 129–33; Leech & Short 1981: 318–51). In
representing consciousness, ID shades off into psycho-narration (Cohn
1978: 21–57) where the narrator analyzes the content of the character’s
mind, potentially including its habitual and/or subliminal (unconscious)
aspects.
Free indirect discourse (FID) is the most problematic and, no doubt
for that very reason, still the most widely discussed form for represent-
ing speech, thought, and perception. (For further details on the free in­
direct representation of perception, see section 3.4 below.) Here frame
and inset become much harder to distinguish. FID handles person and
tense as ID would (though in French it is identifiable by a distinctive
past-tense form, the imparfait, in narrative contexts where the passé
simple would be expected). On the other hand, it treats deixis as DD
would, reflecting the → character’s rather than the → narrator’s posi­
tion: “she couldn’t just now, but tomorrow she would.” FID also toler­
ates many of the expressive elements characteristic of direct
quotation―how many, and which ones, remains controversial. In terms
of the Textinterferenz model, person and tense evoke the narrator's text,
while deictic, expressive and other features evoke the character’s text.
To further complicate matters, many instances of FID entirely lack the
form’s defining features so that, taken out of context, they appear indis­
tinguishable from non-quoting narrative sentences. Manifestly, it is
 Speech Representation 436

contextual cues more than formal features that determine, in many

cases, whether or not a sentence will be interpreted as a free indirect
representation of speech, thought or perception (McHale 1978; Ehrlich
1990).
In view of the range and diversity of each of these forms, especially
ID and FID, and the evidence of intermediate or ambiguous instances,
some analysts have concluded that a scale of possibilities would be
more adequate than the three-category model (McHale 1978; Leech &
Short 1981). Such scalar approaches, however, are hardly an improve­
ment on the three-category model when it comes to capturing those dif­
fuse and transient effects of “voice” that are such a regular experience
of reading novels. Especially pointed is the dissatisfaction of some ana­
lysts with the mapping of categories deriving from speech representa­
tion onto the phenomena of represented consciousness. Consciousness
in fiction, it has been compellingly argued (e.g. Palmer 2004), is much
more ubiquitous and variegated than speech and is not adequately cap­
tured by speech-based models of interior discourse. (For further discus­
sion, see section 3.4 below.)

3 History of the Concept and its Study

3.1 Genealogy

The foundation for the categorical approach to speech representation,

and the source for many of the conceptual difficulties that continue to
beset it, can be traced back to the ancient world. Plato in Republic III
distinguishes between situations in which the poet speaks in his own
voice (Plato calls this “pure narration,” haple diegesis) and those in
which the poet mimics a character’s voice. Classical rhetoric recog­
nized two categories of speech representation proper, oratio recta and
oratio obliqua, direct and indirect discourse; however, FID, though
already present in ancient Greek and Latin literature and in biblical
narrative, would not be identified until the last decades of the 19 th cen­
tury. Pervasive in the 19th-century novel, from Austen to Flaubert, Zola,
James and beyond (Pascal 1977), FID did not attain the threshold of
visibility until, arguably, the 1857 trial of Madame Bovary, which
hinged on whether certain free indirect expressions of indecent and
anti-social sentiments were attributable to the author (LaCapra 1982;
Toolan 2006). In any case, French and German Romance philologists
identified this “new” form around the turn of the nineteenth century,
calling it erlebte Rede, verschleierte Rede, or style indirect libre (To­
bler 1887; Kalepky 1899, 1913; Bally 1912; Lorck 1914; Lerch 1914;
437 Speech Representation

Lips 1926). In English, FID has also been called “narrated monologue”
(Cohn) and “represented speech and thought” (Banfield); Israeli schol­
ars call it “combined discourse.” A prescient critique of grammar-based
descriptions of FID was mounted as early as 1929 by Vološinov, Bax­
tin’s collaborator and/or alter ego. However, Vološinov’s contribution
dropped out of sight until the “rediscovery” of the Baxtin circle in the
late 1960s and early 1970s, and in the meantime the forms of speech
representation continued to be treated less as narratological than as
grammatical phenomena, whether according to traditional models of
grammar (e.g. Ullmann 1957) or in terms of the transformational-gen­
erative paradigm (Banfield 1982).
Over the course of the 20th century, scholars of FID gradually ex­
panded the range of what had initially been perceived as a rather local
and specialized phenomenon limited to third-person (heterodiegetic)
literary narratives. It was identified in first-person, second-person, and
present-tense contexts as well as in non-literary prose and oral narra-
tive (Todemann 1930; Cohn 1969; Fludernik 1993: 82–104), and its
historical roots were pushed back to the Middle Ages and earlier. Apart
from the Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages, it has been attested
in Hungarian, Finnish, Japanese, and Chinese, among others (Steinberg
1971; Coulmas ed. 1986; Hagenaar 1992; Tammi & Tommola eds.
2006). Above all, it has come to be recognized not only as a tool for
regulating distance from a character―from empathetic identification at
one extreme to ironic repudiation at the other―but also as one of the
primary vehicles of what modernist poetics taught us to call the stream
of consciousness.
Stream of consciousness is best thought of not as a form but as a
particular content of consciousness, characterized by free association,
the illusion of spontaneity, and constant micro-shifts among percep­
tion, introspection, anticipation, speculation, and memory (Humphrey
1954; Friedman 1955; Bickerton 1967). It can be realized formally by
first-person “autonomous” interior monologue (as in Molly Bloom’s
soliloquy from Ulysses, or the first three sections of Faulkner’s The
Sound and the Fury), or by FID (as in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as
a Young Man,or Virginia Woolf’s Mrs.Dalloway and To the Light­
house), or indeed by a combination of means. Modernist innovations in
stream of consciousness technique seemed to monopolize the agenda of
scholarly investigation of the representation of consciousness for much
of the 20th century, at least until Cohn (1978) reasserted the importance
and ubiquity of less “glamorous” techniques, such as psycho-narration.
Since then, cognitive narratologists in particular have taken up the
challenge of investigating the presence of consciousness in fiction out­
 Speech Representation 438

side the well-worn channels of the stream of consciousness (e.g.

Fludernik 1993, 1996; Palmer 2004; Zunshine 2006).

3.2 Mimesis

Progress in understanding speech and consciousness representation has

been hampered by fundamental confusion about the concept of mime-
sis. Two senses of mimesis are regularly conflated: on the one hand,
mimesis in the sense, derived ultimately from Plato, of the author’s
speaking in a character’s voice rather than his own; on the other hand,
mimesis in the sense of faithful reproduction of what we take to be
reality. An unexamined assumption throughout much of the discussion
of speech representation has been that mimesis in the sense of speaking
for the character should correlate with mimesis in the sense of faithful­
ness of reproduction―that the more direct the representation was, the
more realistic or life-like it would be (Sternberg 1982). Thus, DD
should be the most faithful to reality, and ID the least, with FID some­
where in between. Nothing could be further from the truth; in fact,
speech representation is a classic illustration of what Sternberg (1982)
decries as the fallacy of “package deals” in poetics whereby forms and
functions are bundled together in one-to-one relationships. Actually,
the forms of speech representation stand in a many-to-many relation­
ship to their reproductive functions: some instances of DD are highly
imitative of “real” speech, while others are deliberately stylized and
un-mimetic; some instances of ID or FID are more imitative of “real”
speech than DD often is, while other instances are less so; etc. (Fluder-
nik 1993: 312–15). Attempts to elaborate the three-category repertoire
of speech representation into a continuous scale from maximally to
minimally mimetic, in the faithfulness-of-reproduction sense (e.g.
McHale 1978; cf. Genette 1972), stumble at just this point. They in­
variably place DD (or FDD) at the most-mimetic pole and ID at the op­
posite pole. But no matter how many gradations such scales admit in
between, they obscure the fact that degree of faithfulness does not cor­
respond to formal categories: one scale cuts across the other.
Moreover, the very notion of “faithfulness to reality” here is highly
suspect. Another of the unexamined assumptions of speech representa­
tion scholarship is that verbal narrative is better able to represent
speech than anything else because narratives share one and the same
medium, namely language (e.g. Genette [1972] 1980: 169–74). But
this, too, is fallacious, as a glance at a transcription of spontaneous
conversation would immediately confirm. At one level of analysis, con­
versation in novels may indeed reflect the “rules” of spontaneous real-
439 Speech Representation

world conversation (e.g. Toolan 1987; Thomas 2002; Herman 2002:

171–93). But at a finer-grained level, speech in the novel appears ut­
terly unlike real-world speech. Novelistic speech is always highly
schematized and stylized, depending for its effects of verisimilitude on
very limited selections of speech-features, many of them derived not
from actual speakers’ behavior but from literary conventions, linguistic
stereotypes, and folk-linguistic attitudes. This is especially evident in
representations of foreign accents, regional dialects, and specialized
professional registers (Page 1973). Perhaps the most powerful factor in
producing effects of “realistic” speech is textual context, which in­
duces the reader to accept thin sprinklings of conventional or possibly
arbitrary features as faithful representations of real-world speech be-
havior (McHale 1994). In short, the mimesis of speech in fiction is a
“linguistic hallucination” (Fludernik 1993: 453); it depends on our wil-
lingness to play a “mimetic language-game” (Ron 1981).
If speech in fiction is not a faithful imitation but an effect produced
by a combination of convention, selection, and contextualization, then
this must also be the case for consciousness in fiction, only more so,
for consciousness is at best only partly linguistic. Nevertheless, the op­
erating assumption of much recent cognitivist work on consciousness
in narrative is that fictional minds are modeled on real-world mental
processes (e.g. Palmer 2004: 11). But what if consciousness in fiction
is just as conventional, schematic, selective, and context-dependent as
speech in fiction―just as much an effect, just as much a hallucination
or language-game? Surely this is a hypothesis that ought to be enter­
tained (Mäkelä 2006).

3.3 Voices

If speech representation always involves a quoting frame and quoted

inset, this means that it involves two agents or instances of
speech―two voices. The two voices are readily distinguished in DD
and in content-paraphrase types of ID, but only with difficulty in FID.
In FID, the effects of voice all seem to derive from the quoted charac­
ter, with the narrator’s contribution reduced to the bare grammatical
minimum of tense and person. Indeed, an early controversy in the
scholarship on FID hinged on the question of the narrator’s putative
self-effacement and empathetic identification with the character. How­
ever, FID is just as likely to serve as a vehicle of irony, and it is in
these instances that the so-called dual-voice hypothesis (Vološinov
1929; Baxtin 1929; Pascal 1977) seems most compelling. According to
the dual-voice hypothesis, in sentences of FID (and some instances of
 Speech Representation 440

ID) the voice of the narrator is combined with that of the character
(hence “combined discourse”) or superimposed on it. “It partook, she
felt, helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity”: in this
famous sentence from To the Lighthouse, the parenthetical clause (“she
felt, helping Mr. Bankes,” etc.) introduces a plane of narratorial com­
ment that ironizes Mrs. Ramsay’s experience of eternity. (Or does it?
This is actually an interpretative crux in the novel.) Irony of this kind
seems best accounted for in terms of the dual-voice hypothesis (Uspen-
skij 1973: 102–5).
With the rediscovery of the Baxtin circle, the dual-voice analysis of
FID, already anticipated by Vološinov (1929), came to be viewed in the
light of wider phenomena of dialogue in the novel. According to Bax­
tin and his school, the text of the novel is shot through with more or
less veiled dialogues between voices that “speak for” social roles, ide-
ologies, attitudes, etc. The forms of dialogue range from outright par­
ody and stylization to implicit rejoinders and veiled polemics (Baxtin
1929). FID is folded in among these categories, reflecting as it does
(according to the dual-voice hypothesis) the internal dialogization of
the sentence of speech representation itself.
Related to the Baxtinian approach, but less ideologically driven, and
capable of much finer-grained analyses, is Schmid’s model of Textin-
terferenz (1973, 2005: 177–221; see also Doležel 1973; de Haard
2006). The Textinterferenz approach treats speech representation as a
matter of interference or interaction between two texts, the narrator’s
text and the character’s text. Textual segments display varying kinds
and degrees of interaction between these two texts, depending upon
how various features are distributed between the narrator’s and the
character’s voices. These features include thematic and ideological (or
evaluative) markers; grammatical person, tense and deixis; types of
speech acts (Sprachfunktion); and features of lexical, syntactical and
graphological style. In DD, all the markers point to the character’s
voice. In ID, person, tense and syntax can be assigned to the narrator’s
text, while thematic and ideological markers, deixis, and lexical style
point to the character’s voice; the speech-act level points both direc­
tions. Finally, in FID, person and tense evoke the narrator’s text, while
all the other features can be assigned to the character’s text.
In the light of dialogism and Textinterferenz, speech representation
comes to be reconceived as only more or less discrete instances of the
pervasive heteroglossia of the novel, its multiplicity of voices (Bax­
tin 1934/35). According to the Baxtinian account, samples of socially-
inflected discourse―styles, registers, regional and social dialects, etc.
with their associated attitudes and ideologies―are dispersed through­
441 Speech Representation

out the novel, appearing even where there is no frame/inset structure of

quotation to “legitimize” or naturalize them. The language of a novel
diversifies into various zones, including zones associated with specific
characters, even in the absence of syntactical indications of quotation
or paraphrase. This analysis of novelistic discourse was paralleled in
the Anglophone world, albeit in a casual and pre-theoretical way, by
Kenner’s (1978) jocular proposal of the “Uncle Charles Principle,”
named after a typical sentence from Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist:
“Uncle Charles repaired to the outhouse.” The sentence is attributable
to the heterodiegetic narrator, but it is “colored” by Uncle Charles’
characteristic periphrasis, “repaired.” The Uncle Charles Principle, also
called stylistic “contagion” or “infection” (Spitzer 1922; Vološinov
([1929] 1973: 133–36; Stanzel 1979; Fludernik 1993: 332–38), in­
volves the dispersal of a character’s idiom into the narrative prose in
the proximity of that character (Koževnikova 1971).
At the opposite extreme from the dual-voice hypothesis and its ex­
tensions is the controversial no-narrator hypothesis advanced by Ban­
field (1982). According to Banfield, free indirect sentences of thought
representation (though not of speech) in third-person hetereodiegetic
contexts entirely lack a narrator, and so could hardly be dual-voiced. In
effect, Banfield has revived the empathetic reading of FID endorsed by
early commentators, but in a way calculated to scandalize anyone com­
mitted to a communications-model approach to narrative. Indeed, it
might be argued that in certain FID representations of thought, those
representing what Banfield calls non-reflective consciousness, there is
no discernible voice at all: “It was raining, she saw” (Banfield 1982:
183–223; Fludernik 1993: 376–79). Whereas sentences of reflective
consciousness express what the character is aware of as passing
through her mind―what she “thought to herself”―sentences of nonre­
flective consciousness express what the character perceives or appre­
hends without being aware of perceiving or apprehending. At this
point, issues of voice shade off into even more diffuse issues of fiction­
al minds.

3.4 Minds

Pervasive voice in the novel is mirrored by a parallel pervasiveness of

consciousness. Investigating the presence of fictional consciousness,
cognitive narratologists have become impatient with the so-called
“speech-category approach,” which in effect limits consciousness in
fiction to varieties of inner speech. Not all consciousness in fiction is
inner speech, they argue―perhaps relatively little of it. As we have
 Speech Representation 442

already seen, however, even approaches to the representation of con­

sciousness using speech categories eventually run up against phenom­
ena that exceed those categories in various ways. Speech categories
“bleed” at their edges, trailing off into less category-bound forms of
fictional mind. At one edge, for instance, ID bleeds into psycho-narra­
tion, whereby the narrator takes charge of analyzing the character’s
mind, including subconscious levels that might not be accessible to the
character herself, or habitual dispositions that might not manifest them­
selves in inner speech. At the other edge, FID bleeds into nonreflective
consciousness. Indeed, almost from the earliest days of scholarship on
FID, it was recognized that the speech category of FID was intimately
related to a form of so-called “substitutionary perception” (Fehr 1938;
see also Bühler 1937), sometimes called “represented perception”
(Brinton 1980) or even “free indirect perception” (Palmer 2004): “She
opened the door and looked out. It was raining harder. The cat would
be around to the right. Perhaps she could go along under the eaves.”
The third and fourth of these sentences are unmistakably FID (as indi-
cated by the past-tense modals would and could, and the adverbial of
doubt, perhaps), but the second is substitutionary perception.
Reorienting the study of represented consciousness away from
speech categories opens up new areas of inquiry. For instance, charac­
ters can be shown to read each other’s minds―not in any science-fic­
tion sense, but in the sense that they develop working hypotheses about
what others are thinking, inferring interior states from speech and ex­
ternal behavior, just as one does in everyday life; they do “Theory of
Mind,” in other words (Zunshine 2006). Indeed, all actions of charac­
ters in a narrative fiction must be animated by mental states or acts;
otherwise, we might not be disposed to call them “actions” at all. So
thought ought not to be viewed as separable from action, but rather as
forming together with action a “thought-action continuum” whereby
actions are animated by consciousness throughout (Palmer 2004: 212–
14).
The most radical statement of this reorientation of analysis away
from the speech-category approach and toward “mind in action” must
surely be Fludernik’s redefinition of narrativity itself as experientiality
(Fludernik 1996: 20–43; compare Antin 1995). According to Fluder-
nik’s account, narrativity is not adequately defined in terms of sequen-
ces of events or even in terms of causal connections among events, but
only in terms of the experiencing of events by a human (or anthropo­
morphic) subject. In other words, it is ultimately the presence of con­
sciousness that determines narrative, and not anything else.
443 Speech Representation

This is a far cry from the carving up of blocks of prose into discrete
units labeled DD, ID, FID. Nevertheless, it is not as unprecedented a
development as some cognitive narratologists have claimed. For in­
stance, the analysis of informational gaps and gap-filling, as practiced
by exponents of the Tel Aviv school (Perry & Sternberg 1968; Perry
1979), is every bit as finely attuned to characters’ ventures in mind-
reading and the thought-action continuum as anything to be found in
the new cognitivist narratology (Palmer 2004: 182). But if cognitive
narratology sometimes overestimates its own novelty and underrates its
precursors, this does not prevent it from standing at the cutting edge of
research into the representation of fictional mind at the present time.

4 Topics for Further Investigation

(a) One is tempted to recommend (albeit facetiously) a moratorium on

further research into FID proper until other, more diffuse and pervasive
effects of mind and voice in fiction are better understood. Among other
advantages, this might give us the opportunity to evaluate critically
some of the bold claims of the cognitive narratologists with respect to
fictional minds, and of the Baxtin school with respect to “dialogue”
(→ dialogism). Baxtin, in particular, has become a victim of his own
(posthumous) success; serial (mis)appropriations of his approach by a
diverse range of literary and cultural theories, coupled with uncritical
endorsement of his ideological positions, has made critical evaluation
of his account of dialogue virtually impossible. (b) Too little is still
known about the role of models (→ schemata, stereotypes, folk-lin­
guistic knowledge, etc.) in the production and recognition of represen-
tations of language varieties (styles, dialects, registers, etc.) in fiction.
(c) Similarly, there is still much that remains to be clarified about the
operation of textual context and its interaction with models of speech
and thought in producing the effect or → illusion of mimesis (though
with respect to context see Ehrlich 1990). (d) “Currently, there is a
hole in literary theory between the analysis of consciousness, charac­
terization, and focalization […] a good deal of fictional discourse is
situated precisely within this analytical gap” (Palmer 2004: 186).
Palmer perhaps underestimates the quantity and value of the work that
has already gone into knitting together consciousness, characterization
and focalization. Nevertheless, he is basically right: this is one of the
holes that remain in narrative theory, and closing it should be a high
priority of future research.
 Speech Representation 444

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Antin, David (1995). “The Beggar and the King.” Pacific Coast Philology 30, 143–54.
Bally, Charles (1912). “Le style indirect libre en français moderne I et II.” Germanisch-
Romanische Monatsschrift 4, 549–56, 597–606.
Banfield, Ann (1982). Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and representation in the
language of fiction. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Baxtin, Mikhail (Bakhtin, Mikhail) ([1929] 1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
– ([1934/35] 1981). “Discourse in the Novel.” M. B. The Dialogic Imagination:
Four Essays. Austin: U of Texas P, 259– 422.
Bickerton, Derek (1967). “Modes of Interior Monologue: A Formal Definition.” Mod­
ern Language Quarterly 28, 229–39.
Brinton, Laurel (1980). “‘Represented Perception’: A Study in Narrative Style.” Poet­
ics 9, 363–81.
Bühler, Willi (1937). Die “erlebte Rede” im englischen Roman, ihre Vorstufen und
ihre Ausbildung im Werke Jane Austens. Zürich: Niehans.
Cohn, Dorrit (1969). “Erlebte Rede im Ich-Roman.” Germanisch-Romanische Monats-
schrift 19, 305–13.
– (1978). Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fic­
tion. Princeton: Princeton UP.
Coulmas, Florian, ed. (1986). Direct and Indirect Speech. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
de Haard, Eric A. (2006). “On Narration in Voina i Mir.” Amsterdam International
Electronic Journal for Cultural Narratology 3
[http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a05:haard.html].
Doležel, Lubomír (1973). Narrative Modes in Czech Literature. Toronto: U of Toronto
P.
Ehrlich, Susan (1990). Point of View: A Linguistic Analysis of Literary Style. London:
Routledge.
Fehr, Bernhard (1938). “Substitutionary Narration and Description: A Chapter in Styl­
istics.” English Studies 20.3, 97–107.
Fludernik, Monika (1993). The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction:
The Linguistic Representation of Speech and Consciousness. London: Routledge.
– (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
Friedman, Melvin (1955). Stream of Consciousness: A Study in Literary Method. New
Haven: Yale UP.
Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cor­
nell UP.
Hagenaar, Elly (1992). Stream of Consciousness and Free Indirect Discourse in Mod­
ern Chinese Literature. Leiden: Centre of Non-Western Studies.
Herman, David (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
Humphrey, Robert (1954). Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel. Berkeley: U
of California P.
445 Speech Representation

Kalepky, Theodor (1899). “Zur französischen Syntax.” Zeitschrift für romanische Phi­
lologie 2, 491–513.
– (1913). “Zum ‘style indirect libre’ (‘verschleierte Rede’).” Germanisch-Romani­
sche Monatsschrift 5, 608–19.
Kenner, Hugh (1978). Joyce’s Voices. Berkeley: U of California P.
Koževnikova, Natal’ja A. (1971). “O tipax povestvovanija v sovetskoj proze.” Voprosy
jazyka sovremennoj russkoj literatury. Moskva: Nauka, 97–163.
LaCapra, Dominick (1982). Madame Bovary on Trial. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Leech, Geoffrey N. & Michael H. Short (1981). Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduc­
tion to English Fictional Prose. London: Longman.
Lerch, Eugen (1914). “Die stylistische Bedeutung des Imperfektums der Rede (‘style
indirect libre’).” Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 6, 470–89.
Lips, Marguerite (1926). Le Style indirect libre. Paris: Payot.
Lorck, Etienne (1914). “Passé defini, imparfait, passé indefini I, II et III.” Germanisch-
Romanische Monatsschrift 6, 43–57, 100–13, 177–91.
Mäkelä, Maria (2006). “Possible minds: Constructing―and reading―another con­
sciousness as fiction.” P. Tammi & H. Tommola (eds). FREE language INDIRECT
translation DISCOURSE narratology. Tampere: Tampere UP, 231–60.
McHale, Brian (1978). “Free Indirect Discourse: A Survey of Recent Accounts.” PTL:
A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 3, 249–78.
– (1983). “Unspeakable Sentences, Unnatural Acts: Linguistics and Poetics Revi-
sited.” Poetics Today 4, 17–45.
– (1994). “Child as Ready-Made: Baby-Talk and the Language of Dos Passos’s Chil­
dren in U.S.A.” E. Goodenough et al. (eds). Infant Tongues: The Voice of the Child
in Literature. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 202–24.
Page, Norman (1973). Speech in the English Novel. London: Longman.
Palmer, Alan (2004). Fictional Minds. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P.
Pascal, Roy (1977). The Dual Voice: Free Indirect Speech and Its Functioning in the
Nineteenth-Century European Novel. Manchester: Manchester UP.
Perry, Menakhem (1979). “Literary Dynamics: How the Order of a Text Creates its
Meaning.” Poetics Today 1.1–2, 35–64, 311–61.
– & Meir Sternberg ([1968] 1986). “The King Through Ironic Eyes: Biblical Narra-
tive and the Literary Reading Process.” Poetics Today 7, 275–322.
Ron, Moshe (1981). “Free Indirect Discourse, Mimetic Language Games and the Sub­
ject of Fiction.” Poetics Today 2.2, 17–39.
Schmid, Wolf ([1973] 1986). Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Am-
sterdam: Grüner.
– (2005). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Spitzer, Leo ([1922] 1961). “Sprachmengung als Stilmittel und als Ausdruck der
Klangphantasie.” L. S. Stilstudien II. München: Hueber, 84–124.
Stanzel, Franz K. ([1979] 1984). A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Steinberg, Günther (1971). Erlebte Rede: ihre Eigenart und ihre Formen in neuerer
deutscher, französischer und englischer Erzählliteratur. Göppingen: Kümmerle.
Sternberg, Meir (1982). “Proteus in Quotation-Land: Mimesis and the Forms of Re-
ported Discourse.” Poetics Today 3, 107–56.
 Speech Representation 446

Tammi, Pekka & Hannu Tommola, eds. (2006). FREE language INDIRECT transla­
tion DISCOURSE narratology: Linguistic, Translatological and Theoretical En­
counters. Tampere: Tampere UP.
Thomas, Bronwen (2002). “Multiparty Talk in the Novel: The Distribution of Tea and
Talk in a Scene from Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief.” Poetics Today 23, 657– 84.
Tobler, Adolf (1887). “Vermischte Beiträge zur französischen Grammatik.” Zeitschrift
für romanische Philologie 11, 433–61.
Todemann, Friedrich (1930). “Die erlebte Rede im Spanischen.” Romanische For­
schungen 44, 103–84.
Toolan, Michael (1987). “Analysing Conversation in Fiction: The Christmas Dinner
Scene in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Poetics Today 8, 393–
416.
– (2006). “The ‘irresponsibility’ of FID.” P. Tammi & H. Mommola (eds). FREE
language INDIRECT translation DISCOURSE narratology. Tampere: Tampere
UP, 261–78.
Ullmann, Stephen (1957). “Reported Speech and Internal Monologue in Flaubert.” St.
U. Style in the French Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 94–120.
Uspenskij, Boris (Uspensky, Boris) (1973). A Poetics of Composition: The Structure of
the Artistic Text and Typology of a Compositional Form. Berkeley: U of California
P.
Vološinov, Valentin (Voloshinov, Valentin) ([1929] 1973). Marxism and the Philoso-
phy of Language. New York: Seminar P.
Zunshine, Lisa (2006). Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Colum­
bus: Ohio State UP.

5.2 Further Reading

Ginsburg, Michal Peled (1982). “Free Indirect Discourse: A Reconsideration.” Lan­
guage and Style 15, 133–49.
Hernadi, Paul (1972). “Appendix: Free Indirect Discourse and Related Techniques.” P.
H. Beyond Genre: New Directions in Literary Classification. Ithaca: Cornell UP,
187–205.
Lintvelt, Jaap ([1981] 1989). Essai de typologie narrative. Le ‘point de vue’. Theórie et
analyse. Paris: Corti.
Neumann, Anne Waldron (1986). “Characterization and Comment in Pride and Preju­
dice: Free Indirect Discourse and ‘Double-Voiced’ Verbs of Speaking, Thinking,
and Feeling.” Style 20, 364–94.
Patron, Sylvie (2009). Le narrateur. Introducion à la théorie narrative. Paris: Armand
Colin.
Rivara, René (2000). La langue du récit: Introduction à la narratologie énonciative.
Paris: L’Harmattan.
 Tellability
Raphaël Baroni

1 Definition

Tellability is a notion that was first developed in conversational story-

telling analysis, but which then proved extensible to all kinds of narra-
tive, referring to features that make a story worth telling, its “notewor­
thiness.” Tellability (sometimes designated “narratibility”) is depend­
ent on the nature of specific incidents judged by storytellers to be signi­
ficant or surprising and worthy of being reported in specific contexts,
thus conferring a “point” on the story. At issue is the breaching of a ca­
nonical development that tends to transform a mere incident into a tell-
able event. However, tellability may also rely on discourse features, i.e.
on the way in which a sequence of incidents is rendered in a narrative.

2 Explication

Publications devoted to tellability differ according to the importance

given to: (a) the concept of narrativity; (b) the nature of the story told
and its connection with narrative interest; (c) the discourse features of
tellability; and (d) the contextual parameters determining the “point” of
a narrative.

2.1 Relation to Narrativity

Scholars generally distinguish tellability from → narrativity because,

firstly, tellability is perceived independently from its textualization
(e.g. tellability is involved when a potential narrator wonders whether
his or her story—lived or invented—is worth telling) and secondly, be­
cause stories that meet formal criteria of narrativity may remain point­
less and simply fail to raise the interest of the audience (cf. Ryan 2005:
589; Herman 2002: esp. 100–09). However, some scholars bring tell-
ability and narrativity closer together by adding to the various formal
criteria defining narrativity its “value” in specific contexts (e.g. Bruner
1991; Prince 2008: 23–5).
448 Tellability

2.2 Interest of the Story

In light of the story/discourse distinction, it is generally assumed that

tellability pertains only to the story level and that it should thus be dis­
sociated from the broader concept of narrative interest as comprising
both story and discourse features. Since a good story poorly told can be
ruined or, conversely, the most insignificant incident can become cap­
tivating when told by a skillful narrator, some critics find it difficult to
consider any aspect of narrative (sequence, plot, tellability, point, in­
terest, etc.) independently from its discursive or textual manifestation.
Consequently, narrative interest might be proposed as a term for tella-
bility when dealing with the interconnection between story and dis­
course.
Semantic and cognitive studies have provided interesting insights
into how salient events can transform a mere occurrence or a “some­
thing happens” (type I event) into a “tellable” or “reportable” one (type
II event) (→ event and eventfulness; cf. Hühn 2007). Bruner has in­
sisted on the fact that “to be worth telling, a tale must be about how an
implicit canonical script has been breached, violated, or deviated from”
(1991: 11). Such a “precepting event” can be linked to dynamic con­
ceptions of plot, and in particular to its complication phase (see Baroni
2007: 167–224). At this level, it is assumed that there is a general hu­
man interest for stories reporting events that have a certain degree of
unpredictability or mystery. Ryan’s (1991: 148–74) possible worlds se­
mantic approach asserts that the more complex virtual outcomes are,
the more tellable the story is.

2.3 Discourse Structures of Tellability

By combining formal and functional descriptions, sociolinguistic ap­

proaches to conversational storytelling have shown that the tellability
and point of a narrative are reflected in specific features of discourse
structure. Thus evaluation devices, for instance, form “part of the nar­
rative which reveals the attitude of the narrator towards the narrative
by emphasizing the relative importance of some narrative units”
(Labov & Waletzky 1967: 37). In a functionalist interpretation of those
formal attributes of tellability, evaluation devices are described as
means avoiding a “so what?” reaction from the audience. Nevertheless,
a number of recent studies have argued that evaluation devices are
quite difficult to pinpoint as actual narrative structures, especially in
cases of non-conversational or literary stories, and that they are not suf­
ficient to guarantee the tellability of a story. As Prince puts it: “after
all, claiming that (sequences of) events are unusual, extraordinary,
 Tellability 449

bizarre, unfortunately does not suffice to make them so” (Prince 2008:
24).

2.4 Contextual Parameters of Tellability

General features of tellability remain on a level of description aimed at

singling out the universals of narrative. However, contextual ap­
proaches tend to insist on the importance of genre, historical or culture-
specific constraints, and for oral stories, on the role of the actual inter­
action in which storytelling takes place (Polanyi 1979). For Polanyi,
describing the violation of a norm necessarily involves giving a minim­
al account of the canonicity that has been breached. Bruner has pointed
out that even breaches “are often highly conventional and are strongly
influenced by narrative traditions” (1991: 12). Similarly, Polanyi main­
tains that tellable materials can stimulate interest culturally, socially,
personally or with some combination thereof. In a different vein, Hühn
stresses the fact that eventfulness, which confers a “point” on a story,
is “context-sensitive and consequently culturally as well as generically
specific and historically variable” (2008: 143). Moreover, genre, as
Ryan points out, can also come into play: “whereas popular literature
invests heavily in the tellability of plots, high literature often prefers to
make art out of the not-tellable” (2005: 590). Other researchers (e.g.
Norrick 2000, 2005; Ochs & Capps 2001) insist more on the actual ne­
gotiation of tellability in oral storytelling performance and have also
extended the concept to include “low tellable” and “untellable” stories.

3 History of the Concept and its Study

A forerunner to functionalist approaches of tellability can be found in

Aristotle’s discussion on what kind of events a drama should imitate.
Aristotle recommends portraying events that produce emotions such as
pity or fear (1449b); events with the greatest “cathartic” effect are
those whose development, even though causally connected, are unex­
pected by the audience (1452a). However, such considerations are re­
lated only to a specific genre of dramatic representation and cannot be
incorporated as such into a general theory of tellability.
In their pioneering article published in 1967, Labov & Waletzky
stated that the formal properties of narrative should always be related
to the functions they fulfill in narrative communication. “Labov’s great
credit,” notes Bruner, “is to have recognized that narrative structures
have two components: ‘what happened and why it is worth telling’”
(1991: 12). By stressing narrative performance (→ performativity),
450 Tellability

they addressed questions left out of account by the structuralists, show­

ing that narratives which serve only to recapitulate experience “may be
considered empty or pointless,” but that they also serve “an additional
function of personal interest determined by a stimulus in the social con­
text in which the narrative occurs” (Labov & Waletzky 1967: 13). The
authors showed that “most narratives are so designed as to emphasize
the strange and unusual character of the situation” because a “simple
sequence of complication and result” does not necessarily suffice to in­
dicate the relative importance of the events told or the “point” of the
story (34). This led them to single out phrases and words that contrib­
ute to fulfilling this contextual function, those parts of narrative being
named “evaluation devices” (37; cf. Labov 1972: 366−75). They show-
ed that evaluations can appear in various forms, such as direct state­
ments bearing on the unusual nature or significance of certain inci-
dents, lexical intensifiers, suspensions, repetitions, judgments, etc.
Although the study of tellability has its roots in the analysis of con­
versational storytelling (→ conversational narration/oral narration), the
concept was quickly broadened to include all kinds of narratives. Pratt
(1977; see also van Dijk 1975) played a significant role in expanding
the pragmatic approach developed by Labov & Waletzky to literary
narratives. Stressing the context-dependency of narrative left out of ac­
count by the structuralists, she demonstrates the pertinence of point for
“artificial” narratives. Furthermore, in applying Grice’s Cooperative
Principle to literary discourse, she showed that the maxim of “rele-
vance” can be associated with the notions of “evaluation” and “point”
(the unusual, the amusing, the terrifying, etc.).
Given the importance of situation of discourse, context, and cultural
conventions in the degree of tellability a story might possess, Polanyi
emphasized that “stories, whether fictional or non-fictional, formal and
oft-told, or spontaneously generated, can have as their point only cul­
turally salient material generally agreed upon by members of the pro­
ducer’s culture to be self-evidently important and true” (1979: 207).
For Polanyi, instead of “how” people structure their stories in order to
make them interesting, tellability raises the more basic question of
“What is worth telling, to whom and under what circumstances?”
(1979: 207). She further contended that the point of a story “may
change in the course of the narration” and that it is subject to negotia-
tion. She developed a simple methodology for “identifying and investi-
gating beliefs about the world held by members of a particular culture”
(213) by analyzing the negotiation between participants “about what is
to be taken as the point of the story” (214; cf. Prince 1983; Rigney
1992).
 Tellability 451

Ryan (1991) postulates that in addition to the features focused on by

traditional pragmatic studies on tellability (evaluation devices and un­
usualness of facts placed in the speech situation), it is possible to artic­
ulate a purely semantic and formal conceptualization of tellability. For
her, the fabula is a network of embedded narratives that can be both ac­
tual and virtual. A character’s goal might be actualized as successful,
but its tellability depends on the fact that, virtually, it might have been
unsuccessful. Ryan concludes that “some events make better stories
than others because they project a wider variety of forking paths on the
narrative map” (2005: 590, cf. 1986).
Recently, the connection between narrativity and tellability has re­
ceived more attention. Herman has linked the degree of narrativity to
the degree to which expectations regarding the storyline are violated,
the former aspect being closely related to tellability (2002: 90–2).
More extreme is the position of Fludernik, who grounds her conception
of narrativity in “experientiality”: “For the narrator the experientiality
of the story resides not merely in the events themselves but in their
emotional significance and exemplary nature. The events become tell-
able precisely because they have started to mean something to the nar­
rator on an emotional level. It is this conjunction of experience re­
viewed, reorganized, and evaluated (‘point’) that constitutes narrati-
vity” (Fludernik 2003: 245, cf. 1996: 70). On the other hand, Sternberg
has grounded his conception of narrativity in suspense, curiosity, and
surprise which contribute to “the three universal narrative effects/in­
terests/dynamics,” asserting that they necessarily rely on the interplay
between the temporalities of actional and discursive sequences (2001:
117). Following his position, narrative interest may well be an appro­
priate term for tellability when the concept embraces both story and
discourse instead of trying to single out only the discourse-independent
features of tellability.
Ochs & Capps (2001) distinguished two different poles in conversa­
tional narratives. The first is identified with highly tellable accounts
and generally involves a single active teller with a passive audience.
This corresponds to the prototypical narrative studied by Labov & Wa-
letzky that involves, for example, a near-death experience. In such
cases, the story conveys a clear point and is more or less detachable
from its context of realization. The second pole can be exemplified by
a moderately tellable story which is embedded in surrounding dis­
course and activity, is co-constructed by several active co-tellers, and
conveys an uncertain fluid moral stance (Ochs & Capps 2001: 18–24).
This approach draws attention to conversational narratives with a low
degree of tellability in which “partners are grilled about their day’s
452 Tellability

activity and reel out what happened reluctantly, without bothering to

dress up the events as particularly important” (34). The authors insist
on the fact that conversation “creates an opportunity to launch a per­
sonal narrative whose storyline is not resolved” (35). They argue that
the point of a story and its relative tellability are not always character­
istics found by the narrator in the potential story before it is performed,
but rather variables that must be factored in during the process of nar­
rating, involving several co-narrators cooperating in construction of the
storyline.
Another interesting development of the notion by Ochs & Capps is
their reflection on “untold stories.” Here, tellability serves to explain
negatively what cannot be narrated due to a selective memory that fil­
ters experience, childhood amnesia or trauma, i.e. events that “remain
inaccessible for narration because they are too painful” (2001: 257). In
a related development, Norrick has defined what he calls the “dark side
of tellability,” exploring the untellable in stories that are too personal,
for instance, or too embarrassing or obscene to be told. He concludes:
“Tellability is, then, a two-sided notion: Some events bear too little sig­
nificance to reach the lower-bounding threshold of tellability, while
others are so intimate (or frightening) that they lie on the dark side of
tellability” (2005: 136). Instead of understanding tellability as a “two-
sided notion,” however, it would be more appropriate to separate these
two notions as radically different definitions of tellability and distin­
guish strictly between what is worthy of being narrated and what is ac­
cessible to narration. Both phenomena are highly context-sensitive, the
latter depending specifically on psychological and cultural conditions
(such as psychic resistance or taboos).

4 Topics for Further Investigation

Based on studies such as Ochs & Capps (2001) and Norrick (2000,
2005), topics calling for additional research on tellability are descrip­
tions of untellable or low-tellable stories, i.e. the dark side of narrati-
vity or its progressive elaboration during the narrative performance.
The distinction between low and high tellability also suggests that the
concept should be more clearly associated with generic and pragmatic
parameters of narrative discourse. It is clear that parameters defining
tellability differ completely when a story is told to captivate the audi­
ence, explain a fact, justify a behavior, reflect on a life trajectory, or as­
sert one’s identity. The breach of a canonical order is more relevant in
popular fiction or in personal anecdotes told to amuse than in experi­
mental literature or in testimony before a judge (see Baroni 2009: 66–
 Tellability 453

71). On the other hand, despite Sternberg’s (2003) reservations, there is

a need to further clarify the relation between tellability and narrative
interest. Finally, tellability is a key concept for exploring the interface
between experience (or its semantic description) and its narrativisation
because it addresses directly the question of how and why some inci-
dents become the object of a narration and others do not.

5 Bibliography

5.1 Works Cited

Baroni, Raphaël (2007). La Tension narrative. Suspense, curiosité et surprise. Paris:
Seuil.
– (2009). L’œuvre du temps. Poétique de la discordance narrative. Paris: Seuil.
Bruner, Jerome (1991). “The Narrative Construction of Reality.” Critical Inquiry 18,
1–21.
Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.
– (2003). “Natural Narratology and Cognitive Parameters.” D. Herman (ed.) Narra-
tive Theory and the Cognitive Sciences. Stanford: CSLI, 243–67.
Herman, David (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln:
U of Nebraska P.
– (2009). Basic Elements of Narrative. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hühn, Peter (2007). “Event, Eventfulness and Tellability.” Amsterdam International
Electronic Journal for Cultural Narratology N° 4
[hhtp://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology].
– (2008). “Functions and Forms of Eventfulness in Narrative Fiction.” J. Pier &
J. Á. García Landa (eds). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 141–63.
Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Ver­
nacular. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P.
– & Joshua Waletzky (1967). “Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experi­
ence.” J. Helm (ed). Essays on Verbal and Visual Arts. Seattle: U of Washington P,
12–44.
Norrick, Neal R. (2000). Conversational Narrative. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
– (2005). “Conversational Storytelling.” D. Herman (ed). The Cambridge Compan­
ion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 127–41.
Ochs, Elinor & Lisa Capps (2001). Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday
Storytelling. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Polanyi, Livia (1979). “So What’s the Point?” Semiotica 25, 207–41.
Pratt, Mary Louise (1977). Towards a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse.
Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Prince, Gerald (1983). “Narrative Pragmatics, Message, and Point.” Poetics 12, 527–
36.
– (2008). “Narrativehood, Narrativeness, Narrativity, Narratability.” J. Pier & J. Á.
García Landa (eds). Theorizing Narrativity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 19–27.
454 Tellability

Rigney, Ann (1992). “The Point of Stories: On Narrative Communication and Cogni-
tive Functions.” Poetics Today 13, 263–83.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1986). “Embedded Narratives and Tellability.” Style 20, 319–40.
– (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory. Blooming­
ton: Indiana UP.
– (2005). “Tellability” D. Herman et al. (eds). Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative
Theory. London: Routledge, 589–91.
Sternberg, Meir (2001). “How Narrativity Makes a Difference.” Narrative 9, 115–22.
– (2003). “Universals of Narrative and Their Cognitivist Fortunes.” Poetics Today
24, 517–638.
van Dijk, Teun A. (1975). “Action, Action Description, and Narrative.” New Literary
History 6, 273–94.

5.2 Further Reading

Schmid, Wolf (2007). “Eventfulness as a Narratological Category”. Amsterdam Inter­
national Electronic Journal for Cultural Narratology N° 4
[http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology].
Wilensky, Robert (1983). “Story Grammars versus Story Points.” Behavioral and
Brain Sciences 6, 579–623.
 Index: Terms and Concepts

The index refers only to those passages in the various entries of the
Handbook where the terms and concepts or their listed synonyms are
discussed in some detail or are central to their respective contexts.

abstract author 165, 232, 234 competent reader 404

abstract reader 398
Alltagserzählung 63
auctor 4–5
author 1–9, 365–66, 403
auctor 4–5
author construct 2
author function 1, 3, 8
authorialism 2
authorship 1, 2, 4, 8
author’s image 161–63, 167
author’s second self 185
average reader 401
career author 167
character 14–17, 363
person 14, 16–7
personification 23
characterization 15, 21–3
cognitive narratology 30–40, 340, 443
cognitive structure 411
coherence 44–58
causal coherence 45
cohesion 44, 46
completeness of plot 46
degrees of coherence 50–1
discourse coherence 49
incoherence 55–7
temporal coherence 45
textuality 47
thematic coherence 45
conceived author 163
conceived reader 169
consciousness of the work 162
consciousness representation 38
contextualist narratology 340, 362
conversational narration 63–70
conversational storytelling 447, 450
cultural code 18
dialogic discourse 76
dialogism 74–7
diegesis 103, 295–96, 298, 300, 311
diegetic narration 264, 266, 271
direct discourse 434–43
discourse space 423
dual voice 440–41
embedding 298–304
emplotment 283–84, 291–92, 311–15
enunciation 296, 303
erlebte Rede 435
Erzählforschung 332
Erzähltheorie 332
event 80–94, 251
eventfulness 80–94
exegesis 300
fabula 283–87, 290
fiction 100–02, 106–11
factual narration 98–112
fictional narration 98–112
fictive reader 169
456 Index: Terms and Concepts
focalization 115–22, 223–24
perception 120
perspective 384–95
point of view 115–22
vision 115–16
folklore studies 333
frame 33–4, 37, 297, 300–01, 305, 411,
413
free direct discourse 434–43
free indirect discourse 434–43
Geschehen 289–90
Geschichte 289–90
happening 84–5
heteroglossia 124–30
ideal reader 398
identity 132–41
agency 132
identity analysis 133
identity formation process 135
individuality 136
personal identity 250
sameness 132
self 132–34, 137, 139–40
uniqueness 132
illusion 144–57
immersion 145, 147, 154
simulation 111–12, 145
implied author 185, 161–73, 404
abstract author 165, 232, 234
author’s image 161–63, 167
author’s second self 185
career author 167
conceived author 163
conciousness of the work 162
internal author 163
literary personality 162
model author 164
subject of composition 168
subject of enunciation 167
subject of the work 163
implied reader 169–70, 398, 402–05
indirect discourse 434–43
informed reader 405
interior monologue 434
intermediality 267
internal author 163
intertextuality 129
knowledge structure 411
life story 137–38
life writing 137
lyric subject 231
mediacy 174–85
mediality 264–65
mediating instance 352
mediation 174–85, 229–33, 234, 311
mental representation 412
metafiction 204–10
metalepsis 190–200
metanarration 204–10
mimesis 103, 293, 311, 438–39
mimetic narration 265, 267
mise en abyme 304–06
mock reader 398, 404
model author 164
model reader 169, 403
multi-level narration 362
narrated monologue 436
narratee 398, 404–05
narratibility 309,317, 447
narrating instance 176–77, 295–99
narration 286, 288
conversational 63–70
diegetic 264, 266, 271
factual 98–112
fictional 98–112
in drama 228–39
in film 212–24
in poetry 228–39
in various disciplines 242–58
in various media 263–79
mimetic 265, 267
multi-level 362
oral 174–86
plurivocal 263
self-conscious 206
self-reflexive 204
narrativics 332
narrative audience 405–06
narrative composition 282–83
narrative constitution 282–93
narrative explanation 255
narrative genre 245
 Index: Terms and Concepts 457

narrative identity 251–52 oral narration 174–86

narrative interest 448 performativity 370–80
narrative level 190–200, 295–306, personal identity 250
371–73, 375 personification 23
autodiegetic 297 perspective 335, 384–95
diegetic 295–98, 301–02 focalization 115–22
extradiegetic 295–98, 301 interest–focus 385
heterodiegetic 296, 301, 303 mirror 386
homodiegetic 296, 301, 303 point of view 384–95
intradiegetic 295, 301 reflector 385–86
metadiegetic 295–98, 302 slant 385
narrating level 295 vision 385
narrative transmission 174–75, 177, window 385–86
179, 181 plain reader 398
narrative universe 422 plurimediality 267
narrative world 422 plurivocal narration 362
narrativity 242, 244–46, 249, 252, 309– point of view 222–23, 384–95
24, 442, 447 possible world 104
emplotment 309, 311–13 post-classical narratology 330, 339–40
eventfulness 309, 317–18 poststructuralist narratology 339–40
narratibility 309, 317 postulated reader 398–99
narrativehood 309–11, 315 Präsentation der Erzählung 290, 292
narrativeness 309 pseudo-oral discourse 65
tellability 309, 311–13 raznorečie 124
narrativization 315 reader 24, 398–407
narratology 329–43 abstract reader 398
classical narratology 311 average reader 401
cognitive narratology 349, 443 competent reader 404
contextualist narratology 340, 361 conceived reader 169
Erzählforschung 332 fictive reader 169
Erzähltheorie 332 ideal reader 398
folklore studies 333 implied reader 169–70, 398, 402–
narrativics 332 05
post–classical narratology 311, 330, informed reader 405
339–40 mock reader 398, 404
poststructuralist narratology 339– model reader 169, 403
40 narrative audience 405–06
transgeneric narratology 228–30, plain reader 398
235, 238, 310, 340 postulated reader 398–99
transmedial narratology 310 real reader 399, 401–02, 404
narrator 174–86, 219–22, 295, 303, superreader GP 398, 401, 404
305, 351–366 remediation 267
narrator’s discourse 174, 176, 179 representation 99–100, 103, 114, 144–
narrator’s imange 358, 361 46, 148, 152, 265–66, 270
narratorial level 174 schemata 49, 231, 411–16
natural narrative 63, 67, 69 script 33–5, 49, 316, 412, 414–15
458 Index: Terms and Concepts
self-conscious narration 206
self-reflexive narration 204
sequentiality 315–16
setting 421–22
simulation 111–12, 145
skaz 63, 65, 125, 127
space 420–31
speech representation 434–43
consciousness representation 38
direct discourse 434–43
dual voice 440–41
erlebte Rede 435
free direct discourse 434–43
free indirect discourse 434–43
indirect discourse 434–43
interior monologue 435
narrated monologue 436
stream of consciousness 437
style indirect libre 436
verschleierte Rede 436
speech event 352
speech interference 128
speech position 351
story 243, 246–48, 250, 253–55, 257,
285–86, 448
story space 422–23
storyworld 52, 420, 422
stream of consciousness437
style indirect libre 436
subject of composition 168
subject of enunciation 167
subject of the work 163
sujet 284–88, 291, 316
superreader 398, 401, 404
tellability 44, 54–5, 83–4, 447–53
Text der Geschichte 289
textinterference 435, 440
textual interference 127
textualization of space 423
time 336, 420
transgeneric narratology 228–30, 235,
238, 340
transgression 192–95, 197, 199
transmediality 267
unreliability 35
unreliable narrator 336
verschleierte Rede 436
visual representation 212
voice 439, 443
 Index: Names

Aarne, Antti 334 Banfield, Ann 106–08, 112–13, 179,

Aarseth, Espen 324 365, 377, 435, 437, 441
Abbate, Carolyn 266, 276 Baron, Christine 193
Abbott, H. Porter 35, 54, 288, 324, Baroni, Raphaël 448, 452
430 Barry, Jackson G. 329
Abelson, Robert P. 33, 411–13, Barth, John 296
Adam, Jean-Michel 343 Bartlett, Frederick C. 413
Adolphs, Ralph 39 Barthes, Roland 8, 16, 30, 32, 45, 125,
Alber, Jan 54, 182, 184 129, 145, 266, 286–87, 303, 337,
Alexander, Marc 415 403, 404
Allbritton, David W. 23 Battersby, James I. 324
Allport, Gordon W. 138 Baudrillard, Jean 266
Alter, Robert 155–56, 207 Bauman, Richard 374
Anderson, Joseph D. 156 Baxtin, Mixail 74–6, 124–30, 162–63,
Antaki, Charles 140 352, 364, 400, 421, 434, 437,
Antin, David 442 439–40, 443
Antonioni, Michelangelo 217 Bazin, André 218
Aristotle 4, 14, 19, 25, 46, 82, 103–04, Beardsley, Monroe C. 7, 164
151, 154–55, 176, 184, 243, 245, Becker, Tabea 68–9
249, 264, 311, 316, 332, 375–76, Benedetti, Carla 2
398, 449 Bénichou, Paul 6
Atkinson, John Maxwell 64, 68 Benveniste, Émile 165, 287, 352
Audet, René 309, 317, 320, 343 Bergson, Henri 76
Augustine 249 Bertaux, Daniel 137
Auslander, Philip 374–75 Bessière, Jean 191
Aust, Hugo 83 Bhaya Nair, Rukmini 53
Austin, John L. 373, 379 Bickerton, Derek 437
Azaryahu, Maoz 424 Biriotti, Nicola 8
Baacke, Dieter 253 Birus, Hendrik 20
Bachelard, Gaston 425 Black, John B. 221, 413
Bal, Mieke 117–21, 165, 179, 181, Blanckenburg, Christian Friedrich von
223, 266, 288–90, 296, 298, 302, 333
305, 316, 330, 332, 339, 341, 343, Bleich, David 401
352, 391 Blin, George 115
Balcerzan, Edward 163 Blommaert, Jan 68
Bamberg, Michael 67, 70, 134, 139 Bohnenkamp, Anne 2
460 Index: Names

Bolter, Jay David 267, 423, 425 Capps, Lisa 58, 67, 299, 306, 374,
Booker, M. Keith 77 449, 451–52
Booth, Wayne C. 2, 7, 161, 164–65, Carr, David 184, 246, 249
167, 169, 182–83, 185, 206, 220, Carter, B.A.R. 384
332, 337, 356, 362, 376–77, 385, Carter, Ronald 68
388, 399, 400, 402, 404–06, Cassirer, Ernst 76
Boothe, Brigitte 248 Černov, Igor’ 285
Bordwell, David 183, 212, 218, 220– Červenka, Miroslav 163, 169
21, 224, 266, 276, 316, 340, 415 Chafe, Wallace 67, 69
Bortolussi, Marisa 36, 50, 156, 353, Charolles, Marc 57
406 Chatman, Seymour 8, 21, 36, 45, 52,
Bosse, Heinrich 6 88, 120–21, 164–66, 168, 174–75,
Bower, Gordon 413 178–81, 183, 213, 216, 220, 236–
Brandist, Craig 76 38, 266, 288, 302, 323, 331–32,
Branigan, David 415 336, 339–40, 355–56, 366, 373,
Branigan, Edward R. 220, 222–23, 377–78, 385, 388, 405, 423
340 Chomsky, Noam 106, 337
Bremond, Claude 63, 68, 87, 233, Cohen, Annabel J. 145, 147
266, 287, 297, 314, 331–32, 338, Cohen, Keith 212, 314, 317, 320
341 Cohn, Dorrit 36, 38, 100, 109–10,
Bringsjord, Selmer 334 178, 181, 183, 198–99, 320–21,
Brinker, Klaus 69 336, 389–90, 434–35, 437
Brinker, Menachem 154 Cook, Guy 34, 412–14
Brinton, Laurel 442 Cordesse, Gérard 390
Brockmeier, Jens 250 Cornils, Anja 194, 252, 336, 343
Broich, Ulrich 391 Coste, Didier 303–04, 352, 362
Bronzwaer, Wilhelmus J. M. 166, Coulmas, Florian 437
168 Coupland, Nikolas 64
Brooks, Cleanth 286 Courtés, Joseph 312
Brooks, Peter 254, 324, 339 Couturier, Maurice 8
Brown, Gilliam 47–8 Crittenden, Charles 17, 110
Browning, Robert 94 Čudakov, Aleksandr 162
Brütsch, Matthias 213 Culler, Jonathan 32, 46, 54, 58, 88,
Bruner, Jerome 82, 89–90, 136–37, 283, 320, 331, 339, 401, 404
246–47, 253, 316, 318, 324, 414, Culpeper, Jonathan 16, 52
447–49 Currie, Gregory 112
Bublitz, Wolfram 48 Currie, Mark 244
Buchholz, Sabine 421 Cutter, Martha J. 207
Bühler, Karl 76, 161 Cutting, Douglass 343
Bühler, Willi 442 Dällenbach, Lucien 199, 306
Burgoyne, Robert 221 Dannenberg, Hilary 426
Burke, Kenneth 139, 400 Danto, Arthur C. 245, 249, 255
Burke, Seán 4, 8 Dautenhahn, Kirsten 270
Burkhardt, Armin 194 David, Jacques-Louis 273
Butler, Judith 380 de Beaugrande, Robert 44, 47, 413
Campbell, Joseph 20 de Haard, Eric 440
 Index: Names 461

Deleuze, Gilles 266, 301 Ferrucci, David 334

Deleyto, Celestino 214, 221 Fetterley, Judith 401
Delius, Nicolaus 235 Fieguth, Rolf 2, 163
de Marinis, Marco 375 Fiese, Barbara 58
Deppermann, Arnulf 67 Finney, Brian 117
Detering, Heinrich 3, 8 Fischer-Lichte, Erika 374
D’hoker, Elke 359 Fish, Stanley 401–02
Diderot, Denis 154–55 Fishelov, David 26
Diengott, Nilli 165 Fludernik, Monika 32, 35–6, 54, 63,
Dilthey, Wilhelm 249 67–9, 156, 175, 181–85, 192, 196,
DiSalle, Robert 420 204–05, 208–09, 213, 229, 235–
Dixon, Peter 36, 50, 53, 156, 353, 406 37, 297–98, 316–20, 322, 329,
Dokic, Jérôme 111 331, 340, 343, 353, 364, 375,
Doležel, Lubomír 104–05, 125, 311, 378–79, 385, 390–91, 406, 413,
321, 339, 356, 440 420, 435, 437–39, 441–42, 451
Dressler, Wolfgang U. 44, 47 Flynn, Elizabeth A. 406
Dubos, Jean-Baptiste 154 Foley, Miles 64
Duchan, Judith F. 35, 37, 306 Fontanier, Pierre 195
Dumarsais, César Chesneau 195 Foote, Kenneth E. 424
Duyfhuizen, Bernard 304–05 Forster, Edward M. 15, 25–6, 282,
Dyer, Richard 26 285–86, 316, 334, 387, 420
Easthope, Antony 165 Foster, Susan Leigh 266
Eaton, Marcia M. 17 Foucault, Michel 3, 8, 244
Eco, Umberto 7, 164, 169, 337, 403, Fowler, Roger 392, 415
413, 416 Frank, Joseph 424
Eder, Jens 16, 23–24, 32, 36, 40, 341, Franzmann, Bodo 398
343 Frawley, William 81, 88
Edmiston, William F. 117, 119, 391 Freeman, Mark P. 137
Ehlich, Konrad 64, 69 Frege, Gottlob 104
Ehrlich, Marie-France 57 Freud, Sigmund 16, 20, 24, 138, 248
Ehrlich, Susan 436, 443 Frevert, Ute 19
Ėjxenbaum, Boris 65, 214, 219, 284 Friedemann, Käte 7, 86, 177, 333,
Ėjzenštejn, Sergej 214, 217 352, 356
Elam, Keir 375 Friedman, Melvin 437
Elias, Norbert 135 Friedman, Norman 176, 335, 387–88,
Elsaesser, Thomas 216, 219 390
Emerson, Caryl 124, 130 Friedman, Susan Stanford 421
Emmison, Miachael 99 Frye, Northrop 291
Emmott, Catherine 21, 34, 37, 49, 52, Füger, Wilhelm 117–18
54, 306, 415–16 Füredy, Viveca 299
Erikson, Erik H. 136 Fulton, Helen 218, 221, 223–24
Esterhammer, Angela 379 García Landa, José Ángel 54, 284,
Fehn, Ann 331 289, 302–03, 343
Fehr, Bernhard 442 Garrod, Simon C. 411
Ferguson, Heather J. 416 Gass, William H. 205
Ferguson, Niall 104 Gaut, Berys 183
462 Index: Names

Genette, Gérard 30, 37–8, 45, 69, 98, Hahn, Barabara 8

100, 110, 115–21, 130, 138, 166, Halliday, Michael A. K. 46–8
174–76, 178–80, 266, 283, 285, Halliwell, Stephen 82, 245
287–89, 295–98, 300–02, 304, Hamburger, Käte 106–08, 112–13,
306, 331–32, 336–39, 341, 351, 320–21, 336, 365
375–77, 385, 388–91, 394, 398, Hamon, Philippe 207
404, 413, 416, 438 Hansen, Per Krogh 359
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra 47, 49, Hardy, Thomas 149
134, 139, 374 Hasan, Ruqaiya 46–8
Gergen, Kenneth J. 135, 246–47 Hauerwas, Stanley 252–53
Gernsbacher, Morton Ann 51 Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard 19, 237–38
Gerrig, Richard J. 23, 36, 52, 145–46, Hauschild, Christiane 90
156, 406, 416 Hawkins, Anne 58
Gerwitz, Paul D. 254 Haynes, Christine 3, 6, 8
Gholamain, Mitra 24 Head, Sir Henry 413
Gibson, Andrew 244, 301, 340, Heath, Stephen 220
Gibson, Walker 398–99, 404 Heelas, Paul 135
Giora, Rachel 44 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 248
Givón, Talmy 51 Heidegger, Martin 249
Gölz, Christine 162 Heinze, Richard 5
Goetsch, Paul 65 Helbig, Jörg 222
Goffman, Erving 33, 139, 198, 303, Hempfer, Klaus W. 165
306 Heritage, John 64, 68
Goldberg, Michael 252 Herman, David 30–7, 52, 63, 69, 77,
Goldman, Laurence 95 81, 86, 88, 120, 122, 136–37, 198,
Goldman, Susan R. 52, 57 243–44, 310, 316, 320, 322, 324,
Goldstein, Philip 406 329, 331, 338, 340, 375, 406,
Gombrich, Ernst H. 154, 156 413–14, 416, 420, 426, 439, 447,
Goodson, Ivor F. 137 451
Goutsos, Dionysis 47, 49 Herman, Luc 120
Grabe, Nina 193 Hesse, Carla 6
Grabósz, Márta 266 Hettling, Manfred 82, 85–6
Grall, Catherine 353, 361 Heyse, Paul 83
Greenhalgh, Trisha 254 Hidalgo-Downing, Laura 415
Greimas, Algirdas Julien 19, 45, 63, Hirsch, Eric D. 7
276, 287, 311–14, 322, 337–38 Hirsch, Marianne 266
Grice, H. Paul 48, 53, 450 Hirschkop, Ken 76
Griffith, David Wark 216 Hochman, Baruch 17, 26
Grodal, Torben 214–15, 217, 222 Hodge, Bob 68
Groeben, Norbert 398, 401 Hoek, Leo H. 165–66
Grusin, Richard 267, 423 Hoesterey, Ingeborg 342
Gubrium, Jaber F. 139 Hoey, Michael 48
Gülich, Elisabeth 69 Hofstadter, Douglas 190, 196–98, 300,
Gunning, Tom 216 430
Häsner, Bernd 192, 194, 198 Hogan, Patrick Holm 36, 39, 247
Hagener, Malte 219 Holland, Norman 36, 401
 Index: Names 463

Holmes, Jeremy 58 Josselson, Ruthellen 137

Holstein, James A. 139 Jost, François 223
Holub, Robert C. 402 Juraga, Dubrovka 77
Hühn, Peter 49, 93, 149, 167, 184, Kablitz, Andreas 116
232–34, 272, 311, 316–18, 322, Kächele, Horst 248
336, 340, 343, 414, 448–49 Kafalenos, Emma 316
Huet, Pierre-Daniel 333 Kalepky, Theodor 436
Hume, David 101, 108, 110 Karlgren, Jussi 343
Humphrey, Robert 437 Kamp, Werner 4
Hurwitz, Brian 254 Kant, Immanuel 250, 413
Husserl, Edmund 248–49 Kanzog, Klaus 304–05,
Hutchby, Ian 64, 68 Kearns, Michael 379
Hutcheon, Linda 204, 206–08, 266, Keen, Suzanne 36, 315, 321
372 Keller, Rudi 22
Hutcheon, Michael 266 Kenner, Hugh 441
Hydén, Lars-Christer 254 Kerbrat-Orcchione, Catherine 69
Ihwe, Jens 332 Kermode, Frank 316
Ingarden, Roman 33, 50, 214, 399, Keupp, Heiner 252
400, 402, 412–13 Kerby, Anthony Paul 250
Ingold, Felix Philipp 8 Kiefer, Jens 93, 149, 233–34, 340, 414
Iser, Wolfgang 32, 54, 109, 164, 169, Kindt, Tom 7, 9, 54, 164, 166, 243,
318, 379, 398, 401–03, 412 329, 336–37, 342
Jackson, Tony E. 35 Kinney, Clare R. 230
Jäger, Georg 3 Kintsch, Walter 57
Jaeger, Stephan 246 Kleinschmidt, Erich 4
Jahn, Manfred 32–3, 36, 119, 183–85, Kloepfer, Rolf 402
229, 236–38, 339–40, 379, 385, Knights, Lionel C. 17
394, 406, 421 Koch, Thomas 16
Jakobson, Roman 312, 352, 357 Kock, Christian 84
Jakubinskij, Lev P. 76 Kocka, Jürgen 245
James, Henry 155, 180, 335, 356, 376, Köhler, Wolfgang 413
385–87, 392, 395, 436 Koffka, Kurt 413
James, William 135 Korman, Boris 128, 162–63, 169
Janik, Christina 343 Korthals-Altes, Liesbeth 251
Jannidis, Fotis 3–4, 6, 8–9, 16, 18, 21, Koselleck, Reinhard 109
310 Koževnikova, Natal’ja A. 441
Jaszi, Peter 6, 8 Kozloff, Sarah 266, 278
Jauss, Karl Robert 24, 32, 46, 401 Kraan, Menno 231–32
Jefferson, Gail 67 Krah, Hans 92–4
Jeffries, Lesley 414 Kramer, Lawrence 310, 341
Jenkins, Henry 431 Kraus, Werner 252
Johnson, Nancy 45, 413 Kreiswirth, Martin 243, 339
Johnson, Mark 425 Kress, Gunther 68
Johnstone, Barbara 64, 69 Kripke, Saul 104
Johnson-Laird, Philip 413 Kristeva, Julia 8, 129
Jones, Gregory 252 Krummheuer, Götz 253
464 Index: Names

Kuhn, Markus 212 Lotman, Jurij M. 16, 18–9, 81, 89–94,

Kunz, Josef 83 233, 317, 414, 425, 429
Labov, William 63–4, 67, 69, 79, 81, Loxley, James 371
83–4, 266, 317, 320, 374, 427, Lubbock, Percy 115–16, 129, 176,
448–51 335–36, 356, 376, 386–88
LaCapra, Dominick 436 Lucius-Hoene, Gabriele 67, 70
Lämmert, Eberhard 46, 243, 332, 336 Lüderssen, Klaus 253
Lakoff, George 425 Luhmann, Niklas 251
Lamarque, Peter 17 Lukács, Georg 76, 333
Lamping, Dieter 20 Lyotard, Jean-François 208, 245
Landow, George P. 4 Macé, Marielle 193
Lang, Fritz 223 Machor, James 406
Lang, Sabine 199 MacIntyre, Alasdair 246, 249, 251
Langer, Susanne Sniader 247 MacLean, Marie 378
Langellier, Kristin M. 139 Mäkelä, Maria 439
Lauer, Gerhard 25 Mailloux, Steven J. 402
Lavocat, Françoise 199 Malina, Debra 190, 197
Leech, Geoffrey N. 38, 65, 435–36 Mandler, Jean Matter 33, 45, 413
Lehmann, Volkmar 236, 343 Manguel, Alberto 398
Leitch, Thomas M. 319 Marcus, Amit 360
Lejeune, Philippe 138 Margolin, Uri 16–8, 20, 22, 38, 52,
Lerch, Eugen 436 120, 329, 343, 354–55, 361
Lesser, Ruth 49 Martens, Gunther 359
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 244, 265, Martin, Mary Patricia 359
270 Martínez, Matías 100, 244, 283, 288
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 334, 337 Martínez-Bonati, Félix 365
Levinson, Stephen C. 66 Marmontel, Jean-François 154–55
Lewis, David 22, 104–05 Mateas, Michael 340
Lieblich, Amia 137 McAdams, Dan P. 46, 58, 137
Linde, Charlotte 58, 427 McAuley, Gay 373
Linell, Per 77 McCabe, Alyssa 415
Link, Hannelore 165 McClary, Susan 310
Lintvelt, Jaap 165–66, 392 McCloud, Scott 423
Lips, Marguerite 437 McHale, Brian 190–91,196, 198–99,
Liptay, Fabienne 222 230, 300, 303, 319, 322–23, 435–
Lobsien, Eckhard 156 36, 438–39
Lock, Andrew 135 McLuhan, Marshall 265–66
Lock, Charles 77 Meister, Jan Christoph 81, 87–8, 196,
Lodge, David 376 340, 342–43
Lönneker, Birte 340 Mellmann, Katja 25, 156
Longacre, Robert E. 68 Metz, Christian 213, 219–20, 225,
Lorck, Etienne 436 266, 324, 337, 341
Lord, Albert 64 Meuter, Norbert 243, 250–52, 255–57,
Lorenzer, Alfred 248 292
Losey, Joseph W. 217 Meyer-Minnemann, Klaus 194–95,
Lothe, Jakob 183, 218, 220 197, 199
 Index: Names 465

Meyrowitz, Joshua 263 Nünning, Vera 183, 330–31, 340, 342

Miall, David S. 156, 415 Nussbaum, Martha 251
Mikkonen, Kai 426 Oatley, Keith 24
Miller, Nicola 8 Ochs, Elinor 58, 67, 299, 306, 374,
Mills, Sara 415 449, 451–52
Milroy, Lesley 49 Oelmüller, Willi 154
Mink, Louis O. 245 Okopień-Sławińska, Alexandra 2, 163
Minnis, Alastair J. 5 Ong, Walter J. 64, 134, 263, 266, 269
Minsky, Marvin 33, 411, 413 Ono, Tsuyoshi 67
Misch, Georg 76 Pabst, Walter 82
Mishler, Elliot G. 137, 139 Page, Norman 439
Mitchell, William J. Thomas 242 Page, Ruth E. 380
Mittell, Jason 341 Palmer, Alan 16, 34, 36, 38–9, 415,
Mixajlovskij, Nikolaj 76 434, 436, 438–39, 442–43
Mondada, Lorenza 69 Panofsky, Erwin 218
Montgomery, Robert 222 Parr, Rolf 3
Morier, Henri 194 Parry, Adam 64
Morrison, Linda 251, 386 Pascal, Roy 436, 439
Morson, Gary Saul 124, 129 Pavel, Thomas G. 104–05, 311, 334,
Müller, Günther 336 338–39, 343, 429
Müller, Hans-Harald 7, 9, 54, 164, Peirce, Charles Sanders 22, 163
166, 229, 243, 336–37, 342 Perels, Christoph 83
Müller-Funk, Wolfgang 243 Perks, Robert 70
Müller-Zettelmann, Eva 149, 184, Perry, Menakhem 32, 36, 443
231, 233–34 Peterson, Carole 415
Muir, Edwin 286 Peterson, Eric E. 139
Mukařovský, Jan 163 Petrey, Sandy 379
Murray, Henry A. 138 Petsch, Robert 336
Nagel, Thomas 38 Pfister, Manfred 184, 373, 376, 378–
Nardocchio, Elaine F. 406 79, 392–93
Nash, Christopher 243 Phelan, James 23, 74, 121, 243, 321,
Nattierz, Jean-Jacques 277 323, 359, 406
Neitzel, Britta 342 Pier, John 54, 191, 193, 197, 200,
Nelles, William 117, 121, 190, 195, 286, 296, 316, 343
197, 302–04, 319, 363, 394 Piwowarczyk, Mary Ann 405
Neubert, Hansjörg 253 Plachta, Bodo 3
Newcomb, Anthony 310 Plato 4, 103, 107, 155, 176, 248, 264,
Niederhoff, Burkhard 121 311, 332–33, 352, 375–76, 386,
Nieuwland, Mante 416 398, 436, 438
Norman, Donald A. 412 Plotnitsky, Arkady 248, 256
Norrick, Neal R. 449, 452 Plummer, Kenneth 137
Nünning, Ansgar 32, 77, 117, 157, Pochat, Götz 244
165–66, 183–84, 205, 208–09, Polanyi, Livia 449–50
229, 235–37, 244, 298, 305, 330– Polkinhorne, Donald E. 246
31, 340, 342–43, 353, 357, 362, Porter, Roger J. 138
372, 378–79, 392–93 Pouillon, Jean 115, 335
466 Index: Names
Pratt, Mary Louise 53, 84, 373, 379,
450
Prince, Gerald 46, 54, 74, 77, 81, 87–
88, 120–21, 169, 174, 195, 205,
207–08, 243, 288, 310–11, 315,
317, 321, 323–24, 329–31, 334,
338, 340, 357, 398, 404–05,
447–50
Propp, Vladimir 19, 45–6, 63, 68,
233, 276, 283, 285, 287, 334, 337
Proust, Joëlle 111
Psathas, George 64
Pudovkin, Vsevolod 217
Punday, Daniel 136
Putnam, Hilary 102
Quasthoff, Uta 67–9
Rabau, Sophie 199
Rabatel, Alain 391
Rabinowitz, Peter J. 243, 276, 316,
405–06
Radway, Janice 401
Rajewsky, Irina O. 237–38
Rathmann, Thomas 82, 85–6
Ravenscroft, Ian 112
Reinhart, Tanya 57
Renner, Karl Nikolaus 92
Resnais, Alain 217
Richards, Ivor Armstrong 399
Richardson, Alan 35
Richardson, Brian 184, 235, 237, 316,
340, 354–55, 364, 376, 406
Ricœur, Paul 133, 136, 243, 245–46,
249–51, 276, 284, 291–93, 311,
313–14
Riessman, Catherine Kohler 139
Riffaterre, Michael 398, 401
Rigney, Ann 450
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith 26, 117,
164–66, 168, 190, 288, 296, 302,
358, 392
Roberts, Glenn 58
Ron, Moshe 439
Ronen, Ruth 104–05, 421
Rosch, Eleanor 50
Rosenblatt, Louise M. 399
Rosenthal, Gabriele 137
Roth, Paul A. 255
Roussin, Philippe 194
Rudrum, David 379
Rüsen, Jörn 245
Rumelhart, David E. 334, 412–13
Russell, Bertrand 104
Ryan, Marie-Laure 4, 22, 35–7, 52,
84, 86–8, 104–05, 107, 112, 134,
145, 149–50, 152, 156, 183, 191–
93, 196–97, 200, 237–38, 270,
299–305, 310–11, 315–17, 321–
22, 324, 329, 332, 339–41, 343,
362, 365, 403, 422, 424, 427, 430,
447–49, 451
Rymar’, Nikolaj 162, 169
Sacks, Harvey 66–7
Sacks, Oliver 324
Sager, Sven F. 69
Sanford, Anthony J. 411, 416
Sarbin, Theordore R. 137, 246–47
Sartwell, Crispin 138
Saussure, Ferdinand de 266, 287
Schafer, Roy 248
Schaeffer, Jean-Marie 107, 145, 149,
176, 193, 200
Schaff, Barbara 4
Schank, Roger C. 20, 33, 411–13
Schapp, Wilhelm 248–49, 252
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 64, 67–8
Scheffel, Michael 100, 207, 244, 283,
288–89
Schenk-Haupt, Stefan 237–38
Scherer, Wilhelm 21
Schernus, Wilhelm 336, 343
Schiffrin, Deborah 67–8
Schlaffer, Hannelore 82
Schlickers, Sabine 195, 197, 199,
221–23, 341
Schmid, Wolf 50, 65, 86, 89, 93, 107,
125, 127–28, 130, 165–66, 169–
70, 180–81, 198, 282–84, 290,
292, 300–01, 303–04, 311, 315,
317, 323, 335, 342–43, 352, 372,
378, 391–92, 394, 406, 434, 440
Schmidt, Siegfried J. 7, 332
Schneider, Jost 398
 Index: Names 467

Schneider, Ralf 16, 18, 23, 52 Steinberg, Günther 437

Schneider, Ralph 428 Steiner, Wendy 266, 274, 424
Schön, Erich 24 Stempel, Wolf-Dieter 87–8
Schönert, Jörg 93, 184, 229, 232–34, Sternberg, Meir 32–33, 35–6, 38, 40,
340, 342 86, 99, 252, 254, 277, 286, 309,
Scholes, Robert 26, 205–06, 217, 312, 315, 318, 323–24, 343, 377,
318–19, 392 412, 434, 438, 443, 451, 453
Scholz, Bernhard F. 5–6 Stierle, Karlheinz 282, 289, 402
Schütze, Fritz 137 Stillinger, Jack 232
Schulze, Theodor 253 Stockwell, Peter 34, 415
Schweickart, Patricinio P. 406 Stoppard, Tom 184, 378
Schweinitz, Jörg 216, 220 Straub, Jürgen 243, 245
Schwemmer, Oswald 255 Strawson, Galen 133, 139, 324
Searle, John 102, 105, 108–10, 373, Strube, Werner 7, 156
379 Stubbs, Michael 48
Seaton, Douglas 266, 276, 341 Sturgess, Philip J. M. 309, 314, 317,
Seemann, Klaus Dieter 231–32 320, 343
Selbmann, Rolf 6 Suleiman, Susan R. 402
Semino, Elena 233, 413–15 Surkamp, Carola 392
Sengers, Phoebe 340 Susman, Margarete 7
Shen, Dan 116 Suter, Andreas 82, 85–6
Shepherd, David 76 Swales, Martin 83
Short, Michael 38, 65, 435–36 Tamarčenko, Natan D. 128, 130
Shryock, Richard 302 Tammi, Pekka 54, 437
Sikes, Pat 137 Tannen, Deborah 67, 69
Simanowski, Roberto 4 Tarasti, Eero 266, 276
Simpson, Paul 415 Taylor, Charles 132, 251
Sinclair, John M. 48 Tedlock, Dennis 64
Skobelev, Vladislav 162, 169 Terkel, Studs 64, 137
Sławiński, Janusz 163 Thomä, Helmut 248
Smuda, Manfred 156 Thomas, Bronwen 439
Sommer, Roy 184, 229, 235–37, 340, Thompson, Kristin 266, 276
379 Thompson, Stith 334
Souriau, Etienne 176 Thompson, Sandra A. 67
Sperber, Dan 22, 53 Thomson, Alistair 70
Spielhagen, Friedrich 176, 333, 356 Thomson-Jones, Katherine 354
Spitzer, Leo 441 Thorndyke, Perry W. 45
Spolsky, Ellen 35 Tihanov, Galin 76
Stang, Richard 386 Titzmann, Michael 90, 92–93, 330
Stanzel, Franz K. 33, 46, 50, 69, 86, Tjupa, Valerij 124, 130
100, 174–82, 230, 236–38, 244, Tobler, Adolf 437
311, 335–36, 352, 386, 388–90, Todemann, Friedrich 437
394, 441 Todorov, Tzvetan 30, 46, 87–8, 115–
Stearns, Peter 39 16, 220, 282, 286–90, 292, 297,
Steen, Francis F. 35 330–31, 337–38, 341, 373, 379,
Stein, Nancy 45, 139 404
468 Index: Names

Tomaševskij, Boris 282, 284–87, 290, Weinsheimer, Joel 14

316, 335 Wellek, René 17
Tomasulo, Frank P. 221 Wenzel, Knut 253
Tommola, Hannu 437 Werth, Paul 35, 52, 306, 416, 420
Tompkins, Jane 32 Wertheimer, Max 413
Toolan, Michael J. 49, 165, 343, 436, Weststeijn, Willem G. 233
439 White, Hayden 245–46, 283–84, 290–
Triandis, Harry Ch. 135 92, 313–14, 316, 319, 321, 339
Tröhler, Margrit 20 Whitehead, Alfred North 256
Turner, Mark 34, 270, 374, 421, 425 Widdicombe, Sue 140
Tynjanov, Jurij 162, 284, 312 Wilder, Billy 184, 222, 235
Ullmann, Stephen 437 Wilensky, Robert 413
Uspenskij, Boris A. 125–26, 128, 178, Williams, Jeffrey 74, 235, 305
335, 392, 394, 426 Williams, Patrick 74, 305
van Alphen, Ernst 329, 339 Williams, Tennessee 235
van Berkum, Jos J.A. 416 Wilson, Deridre 22, 53
van Dijk, Teun A. 46, 57, 68, 334, Wimsatt, William K. 7, 164
343, 450 Winko, Simone 3, 8–9, 25
van Peer, Willie 36, 336 Wittig, Susan 68
van Roermund, G.C. 253 Wolf, Dagmar 247
Varga, A. Kibédi 272 Wolf, Norbert Christian 8
Vendler, Zeno 88 Wolf, Werner 37, 149, 151, 155–56,
Veyne, Paul 99, 245 183–84, 190, 196, 198, 200, 205–
Vinogradov, Viktor 65, 162–63 09, 231, 267, 272–274, 277, 305,
Vitoux, Pierre 391, 395 310, 340–42, 375, 378–79
Völker, Katrin 221 Wolf, Yvonne 222
Volek, Emil 284, 286, 289 Wolfson, Nessa 69
Vološinov, Valentin N. 76, 125, 128, Woodmansee, Martha 6
435, 437, 439–41 Wooffitt, Robin 64, 68
Vossler, Karl 76 Woolf, Virginia 321, 387, 437
Vultur, Ioana 149, 176 Worth, Sol 270
Vygotskij, Lev 284 Wunderlich, Werner 8
Wagner, Frank 197–98 Yacobi, Tamar 360
Walker, Cheryl 8 Yaron, Iris 48
Walsh, Richard 53, 182–83, 186, 313, Young, Katherine Galloway 69, 299,
321, 324, 365 302, 306
Walton, Kendall 22, 103, 109, 144– Yule, George 47–8
45, 147, 156, 359, 363–64 Zbinden, Karine 76
Warren, Austin 17 Zipfel, Frank 105, 110, 165
Warren, Robert Penn 286 Zoran, Gabriel 421, 423
Watts, Richard J. 53 Zubin, David A. 426
Waugh, Patricia 206 Zunshine, Lisa 18, 36, 38, 438, 442
Weidle, Roland 229, 238 Zwaan, Rolf A. 152, 156