Gérard Genette
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Gérard Genette (born 1930) is a French literary theorist, associated in particular with the structuralist movement and such figures as Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, from whom he adapted the concept of bricolage. He is largely responsible for the reintroduction of a rhetorical vocabulary into literary criticism, such terms as trope and metonymy now used as frequently in American universities as those in France; additionally his work on narrative, best known in America through the selection Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, has been of considerable importance. His conscious influence in America is not as great as that of Barthes and Lévi-Strauss, as his work is more often included in selections or discussed in secondary works than studied in its own right, but even for those outside of the study of structuralism it is difficult not to encounter terms and techniques originating in his vocabulary and systems. His most important work is the multi-part Figures series, of which Narrative Discourse is a section, but he has continued teaching and writing up to this day.
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[edit] Important concepts in Genette's narratology
This outline of Gennette's narratology is derived from Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. This book was drawn from his multi-volume work Figures I-III. The examples used in it are mainly drawn from Proust's epic In Search of Lost Time. This was to answer the criticism which had been used against previous forms of narratology, that they could deal only with the most simple stories, such as Propp's work in Morphology of the Folk Tale. If narratology could cope with Proust, this could no longer be said.
Below are the five main concepts used by Genette in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. They are primarily used to look at the syntax of narratives, rather than to perform an interpretation of them.
[edit] Order
Say a story is as follows: a suspicious corpse is found (event A), then circumstances of the murder are revealed (event B), then the murderer is caught (event C).
Arranged chronologically the events run B1, A2, C3.
This accounts for the 'obvious' effects the reader will recognise, such as flashback. It also deals with the structure of narratives on a more systematic basis, accounting for flash-forward, simultaneity, as well as possible, if rarely used effects. These disarrangements on the level of order are termed 'anachrony'.
[edit] Frequency
The separation between an event and its narration allows several possibilities.
- An event can occur once and be narrated once (singular).
- 'Today I went to the shop.'
- An event can occur n times and be narrated once (iterative).
- 'I used to go to the shop.'
- An event can occur once and be narrated n times (repetitive).
- 'Today I went to the shop' + 'Today he went to the shop' etc.
- An event can occur n times and be narrated n times (multiple).
- 'I used to go to the shop' + 'He used to go to the shop' + 'I went to the shop yesterday' etc.
[edit] Duration
The separation between an event and its narration means that there is discourse time and narrative time. These are the two main elements of duration.
- "Five years passed", has a lengthy discourse time, five years, but a short narrative time (it only took a second to read).
- James Joyce's novel Ulysses has a relatively short discourse time, twenty-four hours. Not many people, however, could read Ulysses in twenty-four hours. Thus it is safe to say it has a lengthy narrative time.
[edit] Voice
Voice is concerned with who narrates, and from where. This can be split four ways.
- Where the narration is from
- Intra-diegetic: inside the text. eg. Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White
- Extra-diegetic: outside the text. eg. Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles
- How many narrators are there?
- Homo-diegetic: one narrator. eg. Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South
- Hetero-diegetic: many narrators. eg. Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights
[edit] Mood
Mood is a tool which focuses on elements such as tense. It is the least clear-cut of the five, and related to voice.
A novel written in the past-tense (such as Dickens' Great Expectations) generally implies that the events narrated are being done from a point where they have already occurred. Past-tense is the most frequent tense used in narrative works. Future tense is most often encountered in short bursts, such as 'dream sequences'.
[edit] Timeline
- 1930: Born in Paris.
- 1967: Receives professorship in French literature at the Sorbonne.
- 1970: Founds French journal Poétique.
[edit] Selected works
- Figures I-III, 1967-70. (selections of Figures III translated and published as Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, 1979)
- Mimologiques: voyage en Cratylie, 1976. (translated as Mimologics, 1995)
- Introduction à l'architexte, 1979.
- Palimpsestes: La littérature au second degré, 1982.
- Nouveau discours du récit, 1983.
- Seuils, 1987. (translated as Paratexts. Thresholds of interpretation, 1997)
- Fiction et diction, 1991.
- L'Œuvre de l'art, 1: Immanence et transcendance, 1994.
- L'Œuvre de l'art, 2: La relation esthétique, 1997.
- Figures IV, 1999.
- Figures V, 2002.
- Métalepse: De la figure à la fiction, 2004.
- Bardadrac, 2006.
