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« on: May 25, 2020, 07:40:24 PM »
Thought I'd inaugurate my return to Serious with a topic related to my PhD thesis.
So the question is, what is a narrative? Is a sequence of events sufficient to be a narrative? If not, what else must be added to this recorded sequence of events in order to make it a narrative?
Candidates I can think of would be something like: causal determination between events, intentionality, internally guiding teloi, some kind of overall thematic structure (e.g. monomythical), authorial pretense, fictionalisation etc.
A corollary question would be what relation does narrative structure have with dialogue; are things like polyphonic novels different in kind in their narrative structure from 'regular' forms of literature, or do they operate with the same notion of narrativity?
Would be interested to hear some thoughts.