An Introduction to Narratology doc. PhDr. Ondřej Sládek, Ph. D., podzim 2018 •The aim of the course is to introduce essential narratological concepts to the students in English, familiarize them with basic theories and methods in the study of narrative. The course objective is to outline in this context: • 1.short history of narrative theory and narratology in the context of study of literature in the 20th century, 2.the main concepts of narrative theory (e.g. story, narrative, narration etc.), 3.basic theories and methods using in the study of narrative, 4.the structure of narrative, 5.the main components of narrative, 6.the surface of narrative, 7.text, narrative and fictional world. • Compulsory Literature •DOLEŽEL, Lubomír. Narativní způsoby v české literatuře. Vyd. 2. Příbram: Pistorius & Olšanská, 2014. •RIMMON-KENAN, Shlomith. Poetika vyprávění. Vyd. 1. Brno: Host, 2001. • •SCHMID, Wolf. Narratology: An introduction. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010. •FLUDERNIK, Monika. An Introduction to Narratology. 1st pub. London: Routledge, 2009. • •PRINCE, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology. Rev. ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. xi, 126. Literature (in Czech) •J. Mukařovský: Studie I, II, Brno 2000, 2001 •F. Vodička: Počátky krásné prózy novočeské, Praha 1994 [1948] • •J. Koten: Jak se fikce dělá slovy, Brno 2013 •B. Fořt: Teorie vyprávění v kontextu Pražské školy, Brno 2008 •T. Kubíček: Vypravěč, Brno 2007 •T. Kubíček, J. Hrabal, P. A. Bílek: Naratologie, Praha 2013 •A. Jedličková, S. Fedrová: Viditelné popisy, Praha 2016 •L. Doležel: Heterocosmica (I-III), Praha 2003, 2014, 2018 • • • • • Literature (in English) •Handbook of Narratology (see The Living Handbook of Narratology ) •http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/ • •Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. •Narratology. An Introduction. Edited by José Angel García Landa - Susana Onega. 1st pub. London: Longman, 1996. •Current Trends in Narratology. Edited by Greta Olson. New York: De Gruyter, 2011. •What is Narratology? Questions and Answers Regarding the Status of a Theory. Edited by Tom Kindt - Hans-Harald Mèuller. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003. • •Postclassical Narratology: Approaches and Analyses. Edited by Jan Alber - Monika Fludernik. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2010. •Narratology in the Age of Cross-disciplinary Narrative Research. Edited by Sandra Heinen - Roy Sommer. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. •Narratology Beyond Literary Criticism, Mediality, Disciplinarity. Edited by Jan Christoph Meister - Tom Kindt - Wilhelm Schernus. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2005. •Fludernik, Monika. Towards a „Natural" Narratology. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 1996. •The Dynamics of Narrative Form Studies in Anglo-American Narratology. Edited by John Pier. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2004. •Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-conscious Narratology. Edited by Marie-Laure Ryan - Jan-Noël Thon. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. • Scientific Organizations •International Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN) •http://narrative.georgetown.edu/ • • •European Narratology Network (ENN) •http://narratology.net/ • • Credit requirements •Credit requirements: students pass the final test which contains questions related to the topics listed in the syllabus. The test is scored. Students must obtain at least 70 % right answers. • An Introduction to Narratology • Story and Narrative • A story is generally understood as a set of events organized in time and in terms of causality. • • Story and Narrative •Zoo Story (2010) •The Story of Fossils (2007) •The Story of World (2007) •The Story of Buddhism (2001) •The Story of Art (1950) •Philosophical Stories (2010) •Narrative is a structured sequence of events. It is a narration about “what happened”, when and how it happened (chronology), and such narration also comprises the participants of these events. • •Narration may be defined as a presentation of the story. • •Story/Narrative Narration •Story/Narration Narration •His story = history •What? •When? •How? • •Příběh: při- + sloveso běhat, slovensky príbeh. •Příběh = pribegáť = přibíhat, ale také obracet se oč, žádat apod. •Příběh = (se) přiběhlo, co se seběhlo; co se událo, co se přihodilo. •přihoditi se = při- a slovesa hoditi; to je odvozené ze stč. hoditi sě = strefiti se (tj. v pravé místo zasáhnout) při vrhání oštěpu. Významově blízké je slovo trefiti, které může objasnit i další významy: přihoditi se (přitrefiti se), příhoda aj. (srov. MACHEK 1997: 173). •Zajímavé je, že slova příběh i příhoda mají v základu sloveso vyjadřující pohyb: běžeti, hoditi. • •vyprávět = vy- a slova praviti, které primárně znamená něco „říkati, říci“. •Odvoz: vypravovati, vyprávěti, rozprávěti, odtud rozprava. •Ve slovenštině se objevují slova vyprávať, rozprávať, z toho je odvozeno slovo rozprávka, tj. pohádka. •Praviti = pravý; „říci, říkati to, co je pravé, pravdivé“, „něco jako pravé, pravdivé tvrditi“ •Narrative is a structured sequence of events. It is a narration about “what happened”, when and how it happened (chronology), and such narration also comprises the participants of these events. • •Narration may be defined as a presentation of the story. • •Story/Narrative Narration (diff. Medium) Story and Narrative • • •The term narrative = commonly is used in humanities, sciences, and also education. However, in each of these fields the term is used in different ways and for different purposes. • • •Narratives play important functions in humanities, sciences, and education. • Narrative realism •Like Plato’s realism, narrative realism is based on the belief that narrative structures “exist in human world as such, not only in the stories humans narrate of this world” (Fay 2002: 214). In this sense people find stories in their lives rather than invent them. • •We live in stories Narrative constructivism • •Narrative constructivists claim that the flow of events is entirely chaotic and incomplete and that it is us who ascribe them meaning. Our perception of the world is narrative but only because we see the world around us, the objective reality, through the lens of a time sequence of events and a causal grid. • •David Hume, Immanuel Kant and modern cognitivists alike believe that both grids are an integral part of the pre set structuring of our mind. • •We think in stories Narrative imagination • • •According to some cognitive scientists, but also narratologists, narrative imagination represents the fundamental instrument of our thought (cf. Turner 1996). • [USEMAP] fil_0178 [USEMAP] gravitation Isaac Newton (1643-1727) Six key explanatory functions of the narrative in science and humanities 1. 1.The illustrative function 2.The historical function 3.The popularization function 4.The didactic function 5.The modelling function 6.The legitimization function 7. The other functions of narratives • •The other functions of narratives allow us to understand the narrative not as a mental (cognitive) activity, but primarily as a phenomenon with a social dimension. • •Narratives also fulfil the role of a means of social and cultural communication. History •Plato: (Constitution) •Real World (the world of ideas) •Our World (the world of shadows) • •Artists vs. Philososphers •Poetics (gr. = poiésis; techné poiétiké; the art of poetics) •Artists = Reflection/Imitation of the world •Imitation = gr. Mimésis (general concept) •Drama/novel/creative writing • •MIMÉSIS + DIEGÉSIS •DIRECT SPEECH INDIRECT SPEECH •CHARACTERS NARRATOR (STORYTELLER) • • •Plato´s poetics: • •MIMÉSIS + DIEGÉSIS •DIRECT SPEECH INDIRECT SPEECH •CHARACTERS NARRATOR (STORYTELLER) • •Henry James: The Art of Fiction (1884) •Percy Lubbock: The Craft of Fiction (1920) •Edward Morgan Forster: Aspects of the Novel (1927) • •SHOWING + TELLING • •MIMÉSIS DIEGÉSIS • •SHOWING TELLING •Dialogues Descriptions •Evoke situation short summary of the situation •Direct speech (not only) Indirect speech • • States, facts • Narrator tell readers what they should think and feel • • •Describes a situation •May describe the character (sees, hears, smells, feels) • • E. Morgan Forster: Story and Plot Russian formalism •Moscow linguistic circle (Roman Jakobson) • •OPOJAZ (OPOYAZ) - The Society for the Study of Poetic Language •(Peterburg); • Viktor Šklovskij/Viktor Skhlovsky • Jurij Tyňanov/Yuri Tynyanov • Boris Tomaševskij /Boris Tomashevsky • •V. Skhlovsky: Theory of Prose (1925) •- „Art as Technique“, 1917 • Výsledek obrázku pro shklovsky •V. Skhlovsky: „Art as Technique“, 1917 • •The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. /Cílem umění je dát pocit věcí jako faktů vidění, nikoli faktů poznání. •The technique of art is to make objects „unfamiliar“ • •Unfamiliar/actualisation/foregrounding = ozvláštění/aktualizace •Unfamiliar vs. familiar (automatisation) • •Study of literature = an analysis the technique of works of art •Not only WHAT? – but: HOW? WHY? • •V. J. PROPP: Morphology of the Folktale, 1928 •1. Functions of characters serve as stable, constant elements in a tale, independent of how and by whom they are fulfilled. They constitute the fundamental components of a tale. •2. The number of functions known to the fairy tale is limited. • • • French structuralism Výsledek obrázku pro lévi-strauss Výsledek obrázku pro roland barthes Výsledek obrázku pro gérard Genette Výsledek obrázku pro tzvetan todorov) Narratology (Classical Narratology or Structural Narratology) = Theory of Narration / Narrative Theory Postclassical Narratologies = 1980s, 1990s (interdisciplinarity; narrative in sociology, psychology, congnitive sciences etc.) New Narratology = 2010s (critical revision of classical narratology) •Text • 1.Language level: Phones, Word, sentences, paragraphs; selection of words, designation, syntax etc. 2. 2.Thematic level: motives, characters, settings, fictional world, ideas, plot etc. 3. 3.Composition level: language + theme 4. 4.Semantic level (incl. in all of levels) •Intertextuality/intertext (J. Kristeva) • •Paratexts (reviews, texts about the text etc.) • • • Types of representation •Mimésis •Direct representation •Direct speech • •Diegésis •Indirect representation •Indirect speech • • •Category of form: • •If form •Er form •Du form Direct speech FDD FID Indirect speech •Free indirect speech (FID) •Polopřímá řeč •Free indirect discourse •Free indirect style • •FID’s use in the eighteenth-century European novel was rudimentary •V. Woolf, J. Joyce • • • • •Free direct speech (FDD) •Neznačená přímá řeč, polopřímá řeč •Inner ideas; stream of consciousness Grammatical tense •DD •He said: „I love her“. (present) • •ID •He said that he loved her. (past) • •FID •He loved her (past) Thematic level •Motif, motives, theme • •What is it? • • • TIME AND SPACE TEXT CHARACTERS SETTING IDEAS Elipsa: FICTIONAL WORLD • • • • • FICTIONAL WORLD Fictional Worlds Fictional Worlds 1.fictional worlds are worlds existing only by virtue of the semantic energy of the text; in other words: a fictional world is accessible through semiotic channels only (reinstated in the act of reading); 2.fictional worlds and their individual components have the status of unused possibilities; 3.fictional worlds are "small worlds" (see Eco 1989; 1990, 64-81); 4.fictional worlds inevitably contain gaps as they are constructed by finite texts (which themselves contain many a gap); 5.these gaps arise in the act of creation of the fictional world and their nature is therefore primarily ontological. • Character •Fictional entities (fictive people, animals…) •Fictional counterparts (fikční protějšky; historical persons: Napoleon, TGM) •Character and action •Characters = literary types (donor, hero, helper, princess, false hero etc.) •Typization •Characterization: direct/indirect •Name (nickname, abbreviation) • • •Number of characters •Types of characters: the main/side/accidental •Evaluation: positive/negative •Natural/supranatural/fantastic charactes •Characters: flat/more highly organized • •D. Hodrová: character-hypothesis; character-definition Narrative •Definition: 3 components • •1. histoire – récit – narration •2. story – plot – discourse • Structuring narratives •Aristotel •Process of rising and falling action through several phases • •One plot narratives •Multi-plot narratives •Structural pattern: • •Exposition •Complication •Climax •Reversal •Catastrophe • Narrator fokalizace hlas Vnitřní Vnější Heterodiegetický v. Portrét umělce, Proces, Paní Dallowayová,úvodní část Hordubala, Lidé na křižovatce, Pan Teodor Mundstock, Informátor Zabijáci, Cikáni, Křivoklad,Kalibův zločin, Markéta Lazarova Homodiegetický v. U tří lilií, Marinka, Škvoreckého cyklus s Dannym, Žert, Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále, Příliš hlučná samota, Český snář Gil Blas, Bílá velryba, Běsi, Petrolejové lampy Narrative speed •= the relation between „story time“ (the durationn of events on the level of action) and „discours time“ (the time it takes to reount the events). • •Storytelling slows down when action is presented scenically (description) and speeds up in summary.