NARRATOLOGY

Gerard Prince

Translation by José Fernandes da Silva

(Goiânia, Brazil)

Narratology is a theory of narrative. It examines not only the

what narratives, and only narratives, have in common, but
also what differentiates them from each other as narratives; and
try to describe the specific rule systems that preside over
production and narrative processing. The term 'narratology' is
a translation of the French term narratology - introduced by
Tzvetan Todorov in Grammatical Analysis of the Decameron (1969) - and the theory
is historically inserted in the tradition of Russian Formalism and the
French Structuralism. Narratology exemplifies the trend.
structuralist to consider texts (in the broad sense of the term)
as regulated ways with which humans (re)
They model their universes. It exemplifies, therefore, ambition.
structuralist to isolate the necessary and optional components of
text types and characterize the way of their articulations. As such,
it constitutes a subset of semiotics, the study of the factors
operational in systems and significant practices.

An important starting point in the development of

narratology is the observation that there are narratives and stories
told in a variety of means: oral and written languages (in
prose or in verse), evidently, but also languages
imagery, static or animated figures (as in narratives
pictorials, iconic stained glass or films), music (programmed), or a
vehicle combination (like in comic books). Besides
thus, an oral narrative can be transformed into a ballet, a
comic book, converted into a pantomime, and a novel,
reproduced on screen, and vice versa. All of this means that the narrative
or, more specifically, the narrative component of a narrative,
can or should be studied without reference to the environment through the
how she presents herself.

Now, with the help of a certain means - let's suppose, that of

written language - a given set of events can be presented
in different ways, in the order of their (supposed) occurrence, by
example, or in a different order. The narratologist must be able to
so examine the narrative, the story presented, regardless
not only of the medium used but also of the narration, of the discourse, of the
modopelo what means are used to present what. In
Grammar of the Decameron, Todorov does not explicitly eliminate the
study of the narration of the "science of narrative" as he aimed; but the
your exam of the tales of Giovanni Boccaccio focuses on the narration, and
your goal is to develop a grammar to address this.
Similarly, most of the influential 'Introduction to Analysis
"Structural Narratives," by Roland Barthes, is devoted primarily to
story that has a discursive structure.

Focusing emo that, instead of emcomo, Barthes and Todorov

were following a path taken by Claude Lévi-Strauss and
Vladimir Propp. Lévi-Strauss had characterized the logic of myth
focusing on the semantic structure: in Structural Anthropology, it
stated that the myth always involves the transformation of a
conjunto de oposições semânticas num outro conjunto, menos
radical, through a mediation or a series of mediations. In
The Morphology of the Folktale, which has proven to be the
possibly the most fertile modern contribution on the structure of
fable ("story"), Propp disregarded the narration in tales of
Russian fairies and described them in terms of the component parts of
narrated. Propp developed the notion of function or category of
actions considered from the point of view of their basic meanings
in the account in which they appear; isolated 31 functions, which constitute
the fundamental elements of (Russian) fairy tales; and argued
that no function excludes any other and that many of them, in
meanwhile, when they appear in the same story, they always appear in the
same order; and argued that the tales – and perhaps all the
stories - always contain the function of a lack or a villain
there is always another function used as undressing (by
example, settlement of deficiency or wickedness, rescue, or marriage.
Propp also isolated seven basic roles assumed by
characters in fairy tales, seven dramatis personae,
Correspondendo cada uma delas a uma esfera particular de ação ou
set of functions: the hero (pursuer or victim), the villain, the
princess (object of the search) and her father; the messenger, the giver, the
ally (or helper) and the false hero. The same character can
to play more than one role, and the same role can be
played by more than one character.

Many narratologists, besides Barthes and Todorov, in an attempt to

to realize the specificity of the narrative focusing on the narrated,
were inspired by Propp (and, to a lesser extent, by Lévi-Strauss). In
Logic of the narrative, Claude Bremond defined the narrative sequence
elementary as a series of three functions, which correspond to the
three basic phases in the unfolding of any process:
virtuality (a situation that opens a possibility); update
or non-updating of the possibility; realization or non-realization.
In addition, Bremond developed a complicated typology of
papers, based on a fundamental distinction between patients
(affected by the process and constituting victims or beneficiaries) and
agents (initiating the process and influencing the patients,
modifying their situations or maintaining them). Similarly,
Algirdas Julien Greimas refined Propp's notion of dramatis.
personae and reached an "actantial" model, understanding
originally six "actants", who have been very influent:
Subject (in search of the Object), the Object (sought by the Subject), the
Sender (of the Subject in search of the Object), the Receiver (of the Object
to be rescued by the Subject), the Helper (of the subject), and the
Opponent (of the Subject). According to Greimas, the narrative is a
everything significant because it can be learned in terms of
structure of relations between the actants. In general, based on
in Propp and Lévi-Strauss, Greimas states that (canonically) the
narrative is organized according to a scheme in
in relation to which, after a given order of things is disturbed,
a contract is established between the Issuer and the Subject, to do
to create a new order or to restore the old order; the subject,
that became competent along the axes of desire, of
duty, knowledge, and skill, performs a search and,
as a result of (three) basic tests, it is fulfilled or not fulfilled the
your part in the contract and is (precisely) rewarded or
unjustly punished.

Although many of the ancient works on narratology have

they are centered on the narrative and characterized the narrative in these terms,
some narratologists considered the narrative as being
essentially a (verbal) mode of representation - the retelling of
events by a narrator, instead of chaining them in a scene
and defined the study of narrative discourses as their
objective, instead of the study of the story. They had alongside the
tradition. Furthermore, they could argue that, focusing on
structure of the narrative, the consideration that the same set of
events can be retold in various and different ways, resulting in
in failure. Finally, in the pursuit of their goals, they could
take advantage of extensive work in literary narration and in topics
as distance or point of view, that Anglo-Saxon critics
(from Henry James to Wayne C. Booth), German academics
(like Eberhard Lämmert, Günther Müler, Franz Stanzel) and the
Russian formalism had executed. Gérard Genette is perhaps the
most prominent representative of this narratological trend. In
Discourse of Narrative and Revisited Narrative Discourse, he analyzed
the temporal relationships that can be obtained between the narrative text and the
story that he recounts, the factors regulating the narrative information
and the narrative instance (the narrative act producing itself and
writing in the text and the situation in which it occurs.

Defining the narrative by its mode of presentation (and insisting on

the role of a narrator), instead of defining it by its object (events),
it leads to a neglect of stories without narrators. Moreover
so, disregard the fact that the story also points out the
existence of the narrative whatever it may be – without a story, it does not exist
there may be no narrative. Various narratologists consider
both aspects considered and their presentations as
pertaining to the exploration of its possibilities. Mieke Bal,
Seymour Chatman, Michel Mathieu-Colas and Gerald Prince, by
for example, they have been trying to integrate the study of what and how;
the most recent narrative model of Greimas opens up space for both the
story as much as for the discourse. This 'generalized' narratology or
"mixed" can be seen as corresponding to "science" that
Roland Barthes evoked in his 'Introduction' and the manifested practice
in other articles, highlighting the well-known number of
Communications from 1966, devoted to narrative. It can also be.
I hereby state that I conform to the present scope of the narratological activity.

It is perhaps the area of narrative discourse that narratologists...

they explored more exhaustively. Genette, Todorov (in Introduction
to Poetics), Bal, Chatman, Dorrit Cohn, Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, and
others described the types of order that a narrative text can have
follow, the various speeds can adopt (ellipse, summary, scene,
slowing down, pause), the types of focus and detailing of
events that can characterize, the relationships that can be obtained between the
duration of the time in which an event occurs and the duration of time
in what narrative mode it is narrated (elliptical, singular, iterative, or repetitive),
the basic ways to describe thoughts and expressions
characters' voices, and the possible connections between narrators,
acts of narration, the narratees and narrated events.

The investigation of the story structure also yielded results.

notable. The narratologists examined the minimal components
of the narrated (actions and events, situations and processes) and, and
following the insight of the Russian Formalists, they distinguished those
components that are essential to the causal-chronological coherence of
story of those components that are not. They studied the connections
(temporal, spatial, logical, functional, transformational) among the
minimal components, and they drew attention to the falacy post
this, therefore, a powerful engine of narrative.
They also demonstrated that the narrative sequences can be
considered as composed of a series of constituents
minimums, of which the last one, in the temporal chain, is a (partial)
repetition or transformation of the first; and it has already been proven that it always
the most complex sequences can be seen as a result of
junction of two simple sequences, based on alternation of
units in one succession with units in another, or of one
sorted in these ways of combination.
On the other hand, besides showing that actions and processes can
group themselves into certain classes (functional) and that in them the
participants can be categorized according to roles
fundamentals, they explored the techniques through which the
characters are established and described (Chatman, Hamon).
Finally, they analyzed how a story can be
semantically characterized as a world consisting of
domains (sets of movements or actions belonging to a
given character, referred to as a problem, and representing a
effort in search of a solution), each of which is governed
due to a modal constraint (ethical, epistemic, axiological or
that determines what "happens" (Pavel).

As for the integration of the study of story and the study of discourse,
generally follow the direction indicated by the work of the
Russian formalists regarding the relations between fable ("basic story
material") and plot ("plot") and, at the same time, adopt a form
grammatical (Prince, Narratology): if the linguists aspired
to establish the grammar of the language, narratologists wish to establish
a grammar of narrative.

Finally, such a grammar could consist of the following four

interrelated parts: a syntactic component, through the
what finite number of rules generate macro and microstructures
of all the stories, and only them; a semantic component
interpreting these structures, characterizing both characterizing the
narrative content of both the global macrostructure and the
partial microstructures; a "discursive" component through the
a finite number of rules operates on the structures
interpreted and responds through the narrative discourse (order of
presentation, acceleration, narratological mediation etc.); and a
pragmatic component specifying cognitive factors and
basic communicatives affecting manifestation, processing and
the narrative of what happens in the first three parts. These
components that constitute the narrative grammar itself,
to articulate with a component allowing the translation of data
grammatical coming from a certain medium (let's say, English
written).
The criticisms directed against narratology and its positions,
claims and ambitions, at least four deserve attention.
It is sometimes argued that narratological models are reductive and
that cannot capture many (important) aspects of the texts
narratives. But perhaps this excessively general burden of
reductionism does not take into account the fact that narratology
strives to explain all the narratives, and only the narratives,
as far as they are narratives: narratologists have always left
Of course, the fact is that there are many elements that are not narrative in a
narrative text (for example, pathetic acts, philosophical forces,
psychological penetrations.

Argumenta-se mais incisivamente que modelos narratológicos são

also static and unable to characterize the engine itself that
leads a narrative forward towards its conclusion, with it
the dynamics that dictates its shape. It is indeed true that the analyses of
Lévi-Strauss's myth completely ignored the dimension
syntactic, which the seminal propiano model, with its fixed order of
functions, was static, and that the grammars of the narrative
they frequently focused on the isolation of the units
minimums of the story instead of capturing its dynamism
configuration. On the other hand, it should be noted that Lévi-Strauss
has never been, nor has he ever claimed to be, a narratologist, that Bremond
previously criticized the static aspects of Morphology of
Propp, and that his own narrative model emphasized logic
progressive of the stories. Additionally, recent attempts to
describe the structure of the story explicitly
worried about its dynamic dimension. The grammar of the plot of
Thomas Pavel, for example, emphasizes the primacy of action and
transformation and schematize the system of forces, stresses and
what plot does it consist of. Similarly, Marie-Laure
Ryan developed a model inspired by artificial intelligence.
which gains its potentials due to moments of suspense and
surprises, advances and delays, obscurity and illumination -
for the emblematic movement of plot complication.
It is also argued that narratology neglects context.
in which the narratives take place, the situation that determines
partially its form and contributes to its objectives, the factors
pragmatics that partially govern their functioning.
This criticism is not unjustified. The submission of narratology to
strategies imported from structural or transformational linguistics,
the concern to capture the specificity of the narrative (a poem
lyrical, a syllogism or an essay can, after all, occur in the
same context as a tale); the difficulty of incorporation of
contextual factors in a systematic description, and the ambitions
"scientific" of the discipline (their desire to characterize universals of
narrative) resulted in the reluctance of narratologists to leave the
pragmatics take part in their investigative domains.
Meanwhile, in the more recent years of development of
narratology, not even the notions pragmatically
based ones are no longer taken into account. More
recently, perhaps because of the insistence of the repeated
sociolinguistic references agree on the importance of contexts
communicative, of the growing interest in relation to practices
decoding and the increasing awareness that narrative does not
should be seen not only as a product, but also as a
process, narratologists began to formulate more questions
explicitly relevant to pragmatics. Thus, Susan Lanser
outlined the foundations for a socially sensitive narratology,
feminist; Ryan argued that some event setups
they build the story better than others; and proposals were made
in the sense of considering the narrative context as part of the text
narrative (Prince, 'Narrative Pragmatics').

Finally, the very possibility of a coherent narratology, which

successfully integrates the study of what and how, was put into
issue by post-structuralist theorists and critics, evoking
the dual logical call of the narrative. This dual logic encompasses
two organizational principles in relation to which every narrative
presumably it operates. One of the principles emphasizes primacy
about the meaning of the event, that is, insists on the event
how the origin of the signifier; the other emphasizes the primacy of the
meaning and of its request, that is, insists on the event
as the effect of a desire to signify. The first principle
emphasizes the logical priority of the story over the speech; the
second accentuates the reverse, and makes the story a product of discourse.
Each principle works in the sense of the exclusion of the other; but,
paradoxically, both are valid and necessary to
development of the narrative, its impact, its strength. This means
that narratology, although quite developed and refined, will be
always deficient: no principle can lead by itself to a
satisfactory consideration of
narrative, and the two principles cannot be synthesized. The
the argument is interesting, but not entirely persuasive, because
combine problems that perhaps should not be combined: that of
evaluation of narrative truthfulness, for example (Between the narrative
Is there a difference between historiographical and fictional? The narrative is one
consequence of the events it presents, or vice versa?); that of
hermeneutic practices (from text to event and from event to
text); and the dynamics of the narrative.

Whatever the deficiencies of narratology, its influence

has been considerable, so much so that critical and theoretical works
shared narrative corpus are often referred to as
narratological, although they do not focus specifically on the traits
narratives, and even if they have almost no connection with
the methods of narratologists.

Narratology can help consider the distinctiveness of any

narrative, to compare any number of narratives and establish the
narrative classes according to narrative characteristics
relevant, to explain certain reactions to certain texts (if
Madame Bovary is aesthetically pleasing and perhaps,
particularly, because Gustave Flaubert uses a scene in the middle of
summary and summary in the middle of the scene), support certain conclusions
interpretative (or favoring the iterative narration in the novel
Search for Lost Time, by Proust), and even providing
certain starting points - invent (new) interpretations (the
the critical narratological call begins with – and is based on –
narratological description.
However, through its concern with the guiding principles
of the narrative and its attempt to characterize not only its
specific meanings, but also what makes it have
meanings, narratology has proven to be an important
participant in the debate against the view of literary studies as
devoted solely to the interpretation of texts. Narratology has
also played a significant role in another battle,
affecting the shape of literary studies. Through the investigation of
factors that operate in all possible narratives (and not of
small dimension, fictional or real), helped to put in
questioning the very nature of the canons, showing that
many non-canonical narratives are, narratively speaking,
just as the canonical ones.

More generally, narratological tools and arguments

have been used in domains that exceed the domains of
"properly literary studies": in cultural analysis, for example,
trace the ways in which various forms of knowledge
legitimate themselves through narrative; in philosophy, to analyze the
structure of action; in psychology, to study memory and the
understanding. So, narratology has important implications for
our understanding of human beings. Explore the nature of
all possible narratives, responding in an infinity of ways
that they can assume, consider how we built them, the
paraphrase, summarize them or expand them, is to explore one of the
ways and fundamentally human singularities we acquired
sense.

José Fernandes da Silva

Goiânia, 08/18/2009