Four Studies of Narrative

0362931 - ÚČL 2012 RIV CZ eng M - Monography Chapter
Jedličková, Alice
Descriptivity and Narrativity: Textual Types, Functions and Representational Modes.
Four Studies of Narrative. Praha: Ústav pro českou literaturu, 2010 - (Jedličková, A.; Fořt, B.; Koten, J.; Sládek, O.), s. 11-28. ISBN 978-80-85778-78-6
Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z90560517
Keywords : narrativity * narrative * description * textual type * representational mode
Subject RIV: AJ - Letters, Mass-media, Audiovision

The essay starts with presenting a brief survey of alternative ways in which description has been conceived of within the context of narrative studies and poetics: description as "ancilla narrationis" or "narrative pause" in structuralist narratology (Genette); the opposition of "classical/realistic, i. e. static" description and "modernist, i. e. dynamic" description (Czech stylistics and poetics); description as the artificial "other" of narration, a theoretical construct alien to the variability of textual practice which should be abandoned (Ronen). The essay vindicates the concept of functional transposition of narration and description as textual types (as suggested by Vodička and Chatman) or representational modes (as suggested by current intermedia studies). This approach is employed in the analysis of John Banville's novel The Book of Evidence resulting in a distinction between and characterization of "vivid description" and "saturated narration".
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0199098