Prose Flashcards
What are characteristics of narrative fiction?
• (mostly) written in prose (natural flow of speech)
• Represents a fictional world
• Organised sequence of events which cause change
• Always mediated
• Quasi-mimetic evocation of real-life experience (experientiality)
What’s a novel?
a fictitious prose narrative of book length portraying characters and actions credibly representative of real life in a continuous plot (COD)
What are sub genres of prose fiction?
• society novel
• Industrial novel
• Historical novel
• Travel novel
• Novel of education (Bildungsroman)
• Crime novel
• Psychological novel
• Gothic novel
• Epistolary novel
What’s a society novel?
Set in high society circles
What’s a industrial novel?
Deals with class issues
What’s an epistolary novel?
the narrative is conveyed entirely by an exchange of letters
What are different kinds of short stories?
• unity of effect (E. A. Poe)
• Significant moment (James Joyce: epiphany)
• Iceberg theory (Ernest Hemingway)
• slice of life (Virginia Woolf)
What is the unity of effect?
effect the piece has on the reader is essential
What’s the significant moment?
short story focuses on specific moment, suddenly understanding something, moment of enlightenment
What’s the iceberg theory?
reader is left to fill in the gap for themselves, important aspects are not mentioned
What’s the slice of life?
as close to reality as possible, random part of random individual, boring to some people
What’s the difference between story and discourse?
Story: events and existence (WHAT?)
Discourse: all techniques of mediation (HOW?)
Stanzel: What is first person narrative situation?
first-person narrative situation: the narrator is part of the story, limited POV, we transfer our own limitation to fictional characters, first-person pronoun
Stanzel: What is the Figural narrative situation?
Figural narrative situation: heterodiegetic narrator and internal focalisation (the narrator is not part of the story, but adopts the limited POV)
Stanzel: What is the authorial narrative situation?
Authorial narrative situation: narrator is not a character in the story but knows everything about it
What does I as a witness mean?
I as witness: homodiegetic narrator who witnesses and reports the events that are narrated but who is not the protagonist
What does I as a protagonist mean?
I as protagonist: narrators are often a character in the story they’re telling, when the homodiegetic narrator is also the protagonist of the story, he or she is called an autodiegetic narrator
What is an overt narrator?
overt: a narrative situation where the narrator is present as a distinct personality. An overt narrator seems to have a distinct personality, someone who makes his or her opinions known.
What is a covert narrator?
Covert: hardly noticeable
What is the narrating I?
narrating I: in a homodiegetic narrative situation the narrator’s person and perception of events at the time of narration.
What is the experiencing I?
experiencing I: in a homodiegetic narrative situation the narrator’s perception of events at the time of their occurrence.
Stanzel: You-narrative, We-narrative, It-narrative?
To define the narrative situation, the determinant is the type of pronoun used to refer to narratee.
Genette: What is homodiegetic narration?
homodiegetic narration: narrative which is told by a narrator who is also a character in the story, narrator is on the same level as characters
Genette: What is autodiegetic narration?
Autodiegetic narration: If the homodiegetic narrator is also the protagonist of the narrative, it is an autodiegetic narrator.
Genette: What is heterodiegetic narration?
Heterodiegetic narration: narrative which is told by a narrator who is NOT a character in the story, no presence on the level as characters
Bal: What is focalisation?
focalisation: aspect of narration which deals with the question ‘who sees’, ‘whose perspective is adopted?’
Bal: What is a zero focaliser?
Zero (narrator focaliser): The narrator can recount events from a position outside the story, adopting the omniscient point of view of someone who, for some reason, knows everything about the story.
Bal: What is a internal character focaliser?
Internal (character focaliser): : in internal focalisation the focus of perception of a character in the story is adopted. This type of focaliser is thus also called character focaliser
Bal: What is an external focaliser?
External focaliser: ‘camera-eye’, narrator focalizer or possibly reflector focalizer, focalizer can only see visible focalized objects): External focalisation has the centre of perception outside the story and thus this type of focaliser is also called narrator focaliser
What is matrix or frame or an embedded narrative?
Matrix/frame narrative, embedded narrative: how another story is put into the story
What is mis-en-abyme?
Mis-en-Abyme:
In film theory and literary theory, it refers to the technique of inserting a story within a story.
Genette: What is the first degree narrator?
first degree narrator (narrator on discourse level)
Genette: What is the second degree narrator?
second degree (narrator on story level)
Genette: What is the third degree narrator?
third degree (narrator on level of story within story within story)
What are the four narration modes?
- report
- dialogue
- description
- comment
What is a description?
description: a narrative mode that represents things that can be seen, heard or felt in some way. Description is a narrative mode that represents objects in space, that is to say existents of the story, things that can be seen, heard or felt in some way. Traditional rhetoric distinguishes between the description of place, the description of time, the description of character.
What is a comment?
a narrative mode where the narrator explicitly or implicitly evaluates events or characters in the story.
What are mimetic vs. Diegetic modes?
Mimetic vs. Diegetic modes:
mimesis (the direct presentation of speech and action)
diegesis (the verbal representation of events).
