Narratology
Related: fiction - literary techniques - meaning - narrative - narrator - representation - theory - unreliable narrator
Theorists: Gerard Genette
By medium: visual arts - film - literature
Definition
Narratology is the theory and study of narrative and narrative structure. In other words, narratology is about the way stories are told, whether it be on a painting, in a work of literature, in the news, in real life, in a film or a computer game. [Jan 2006]See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narratology
General Introduction to Narratology
NARRATOLOGY EXAMINES THE WAYS that narrative structures our perception of both cultural artifacts and the world around us. The study of narrative is particularly important since our ordering of time and space in narrative forms constitutes one of the primary ways we construct meaning in general. As Hayden White puts it, "far from being one code among many that a culture may utilize for endowing experience with meaning, narrative is a meta-code, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted" . Given the prevalence and importance of narrative media in our lives (television, film, fiction), narratology is also a useful foundation to have before one begins analyzing popular culture. The pages in the narratology site therefore attempt to introduce important theorists of narrative and the basic terms needed to explain both fiction and film. --Dino Felluga via http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/narratology/modules/introduction.html [Oct 2005]
Dino Felluga further identifies the "players" in this field as Peter Brooks, Roland Barthes (S/Z) and Algirdas Greimas and Fredric Jameson. [Oct 2005]
See also: narrative - narratology - story
List of topics
Allegory Anthropomorphism Audience surrogate Author surrogate B Back-story Breaking character C Cautionary tale Characterization Chekhov's Gun Cliffhanger Climax (narrative) Conflict (narrative) Continuity D Deathtrap (plot device) Denouement Deus ex machina Diegesis E Epistolary novel F False document First-person narrative F Flashback Foreshadowing Fourth wall Frame story H Happy ending Hero L Literary antagonist Literary technique M MacGuffin Magic realism Melodrama Mimesis Mondegreen N Narrative Narrative structure Narratology Narrator O Omniscient narrator P Parable Pastiche Peripeteia P Plot Plot device Plot dump Plot hole Point of view (literature) Protagonist Q Quest R Reboot (continuity) Retcon Roman à clef S Shared universe Stock character Story within a story Stream of consciousness Subplot Suspension of disbelief T Third person limited omniscient Tragedy U Unreliable narrator V Villain W Word play --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Narratology [Oct 2004]Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (1985) - Mieke Bal
Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (1985) - Mieke Bal [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Card catalog description
Since its first publication in English in 1985, Mieke Bal's Narratology has become a classic introduction to the major elements of a comprehensive theory of narrative texts. In this second edition, Professor Bal broadens the spectrum of her theoretical model, updating the chapters on literary narrative and adding new examples from outside the field of literary studies. Some specific additions include discussions on dialogue in narrative, translation as transformation (including translation between different media), intertextuality, interdiscursivity, and the place of the subject in narratology. Two new sections, one on visualization and visual narrative with examples from art and film and the other an examination of anthropological views of narrative, lead Bal to conclude with a re-evaluation of narratology in light of its applications outside the realm of the literary.
See also: narrative - story - technique
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