Narrative Flashcards
focalisation OED
The limited point of view from which the events of a story are narrated. eg. First person narration. The perspective through which a narrative is presented.
free indirect discourse OED
a special type of third-person narration that slips in and out of characters’ consciousness. In other words, characters’ thoughts, feelings, and words are filtered through the third-person narrator in free indirect discourse.
mimesis OED
the representation or imitation of the real world in (a work of) art, literature, etc.
Sometimes used with reference to Aristotle Poetics 1447a or Plato Republic 598b. Although Plato and Aristotle use mimesis to refer generally to the imitation of nature in art, both also use the term more specifically. Plato contrasts two types of speech: the author’s own narrative voice (diegesis) and the ‘imitated’ voice of a character (mimesis). Aristotle extended this use to encompass imitative action as well as speech
diegesis OED
the fictional time, place, characters, and events which constitute the universe of the narrative.
Abbott - “The management
of plot…
is among other things the management of suspense, which in turn generates the energy that draws us through any well-constructed narrative - in Ryan, Marie-Laure. “Toward a Definition of Narrative.” The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, edited by David Herman, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 22–36. Cambridge Companions to Literature.
Abbott - the distinction between story and
how it is communicated is…
so fundamental that scholars of narrative often bring narration and plot together under a single heading, narrative discourse.
there is little dispute that a story is composed of…
action (an event or events) and characters (more broadly existents or entities) and that it always proceeds forward in time
controversy around whether the rendering/ narrative precedes or follows the story
does story rely on narrative to become itself?
narration relies on
the nature of the narrator, especially their distance from the action of the plot
homodiegetic narrators
narrators who are also characters in the
story = more often personally affected and therefore biased
heterodiegetic narrator
narrators who stand outside the story - more often reliable
Aristotle’s concept of “muthos,” often
translated as plot, is…
the fashioned story, shaped with a beginning, middle, and end.
What are things that plot does to a story?
re-arranges, expands,
contracts, or repeats events by temporary delays, concealments, and confusions
Forster in Aspects of the Novel ch.5 denotes
the causality of a plot in comparison to a story, the series of events doesn’t need to be chronologically ordered….
First person narrators are not always the hero, often are wronged and are onlookers eg. …
in Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Sherlock Holmes
