Introduction to Literary Studies

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Two theatres in London in the 16th century. 

1. In medias res (in the middle) 
2. ab ovo (from the beginning) 

• Author-centered 
• reader-centered
• text-centered
• context-centered 

• General idea: the world makes sense, there is causality and order
• background: ground narratives. The Bible 

• Erosion of the belief of the idea that the world makes sense
• Background: Erosion of old grand narratives 

• Poems can be narrative, plays tell a story
• narrative prose and plays can use language that is poetic, i. e. Highly structured 

• Narrative as a fundamental human activity in various fields of life :
  • medicine
  • jusdiction (case studies)
  • history
  • everday life...
• narrative as a form of understanding and explaining the world (myths, religious texts, etc.) 
• it is through narrative that we give shape to our experience: we tell stories to understand and make sense of our lives
• narrative as a way of constructing an identity: 
  • "to answer the question 'who?' Is to tell a story"
• to be human = to tell stories. Humans are the only animals that tell stories  

• Life does not have a plot
  • stories have a beginning and an end
  • life has pre-history and post history 

A sequence of at least two events

"The king died and then the queen died" 

The logically connected sequence of events 

"The king died and then the queen died of grief" 

• Story (what is told?) 
  • events
  • existents
    • setting
    • characters
• Discourse (how is it told?) 
  • who tells the story
  • when, how, to whom? 
  • Treatment of time 

1. Setting: place and time
   • symbolic settings? (Location, weather...)
   • present, past (historical novel), future? Constellations of settings
2. Characters: 
   • flat characters (types, one-dimensional) or round (complex) characters? 
   • Static or dynamic characters
   • constellations of characters
3. Events 

• Endings: 
  • open versus closed ending (closure) 
  • poetic justice? → Good wins, bad fails  
• Setting, characters and events are connected
  • characters can be characterized by their surroundings

• Ich-Erzähler
• "I-as-protagonist": narrator as 1 central character
• "I-as-witness": narrator as a marginal figure
• Narrating-I (erzählendes Ich) vs- Experiencing-I (erlebendes Ich) 

• auktorialer Erzähler
• Narrator outside the events
• ability to look into the characters' thoughts
• knowledge of past, present and future

• personale Erzählsituation
• no visible or identifieable narrator
• grammatically: third person (she thought..., he saw...., she felt...
• .... but thoughts and perceptions of one character, the "reflector" figure 
• Figural narrative situation tries to depict what goes on in a characters mind
  • heavily influenced by psychoanalysis (only comes into being in the late 19th century) 

• Stanzel: who is speaking?
• Genette: Who is perceiving? 
  • ("Focalization", Genette's term "focalizer": very similar to Stanzel's "personale Erzählsituation") 

Basic question: Who is perceiving? 

• Narrator part of the events?
  • narrator inside the story: homodiegetic narrator
  • narrator outside of story: heterodiegetic narrator 
• Narrator recognizable?
  • narrator invisible, merely a reporting voice: covert narrator
  • narrator visible, refers to themselves: overt narrator 
• reliable vs. unreliable narrators 

• Narrator: Who speaks (to whom, in what way, in what situation) 
• Focalizer: who sees, hears, feels, thinks? 

• Internal focalization (limits the perspective within a character) 
• External focalization (presents information of characters' external behaviour) 
• fixed focalization (restricted to one perspective throughout the narrative 
• variable focalization (different scenes presented from different perspectives) 
• mutliple focalization (comparisons of several perspectives on the same event)