Narrative mode

The narrative perspective of a narrative text ( epic ) is an answer to the question "Where sees and speaks the narrator? " Or " What can the narrator know? ". In the literature there are, according to the various narrative theories, numerous models of narrative perspectives. The narrative perspective can be distinguished from the narrative approach.

Different narrative perspectives

A distinction is made in the narrative theory in terms of the narrative behavior essentially by FK Stanzel three basic types of the narrator:

Authorial narrator ( authorial narrative form ) The authorial narrator has a complete overview of what is happening. He can comment on current actions and engage in the world of figures or purely observational report. Also, he can report on both the past and the present and the future. However, it is not identical with the personality of the author, but a fictional character in the narrative that conveys the reality of the reader the world.

HR Narrator ( Personale narrative form ) The personal narrator told from the perspective of one or more persons, as if he had experienced it himself (cf. narrator ). As the authorial narrator can also be the personal narrator intervene or be confined to a mere observer role in the current events.

Neutral Narrator ( Neutral narrative form ) The neutral narrator occurs mostly in factual texts. He can not comment on current events nor did he glance at the overall picture of a story. A neutral narrator is situated mostly in texts in which direct speech predominates (eg, "I have given you yesterday but the form ," he said with a worried face. ).

Terms

In the narrative theory narratology or the narrative perspective is usually one of several categories that you need to analyze a narrative text. Stanzel distinguishes between about person, mood and perspective. The concept of narrative perspective concerns the relationship of the narrator to the protagonist and the narrated world, the author is irrelevant in this context.

In a first-person narrative, the question of narrative perspective is seemingly easier to clarify. The emphasized subjectivity marks a restricted point of view, because a first-person narrator can not know everything about the narrative world. In contrast, an authorial, so omniscient narrator has unlimited access to all information of the narrated world, as in Goethe's Elective Affinities. In many treatises is meant by perspective both spatial and temporal distance, as well as subjectivity and objectivity, so not only access to information but also standings. Sharper separation therefore is the model of Genette, which strictly distinguishes between mode ( who sees ) and voice (who speaks ).

In English, the narrative perspective is also referred to as point-of -view. The point-of -view in the literature has to however be clearly distinguished from the cinematic point-of -view shot, because that refers to a setting that reflects the look of a character in the literature, however, is under the point-of -view understood the perspective of whole scenes or the whole text. In contrast to the observer's perspective falls in the narrative perspective, the focus is not only on what one observer perceives, but also on what he wants as report.

The term perspective is of course a metaphor, because in the literature is actually only told with words. The medium literature, however, can not just " tell " ( telling or reporting view), but also " show " ( showing or stage performances). Through a dialogical form of presentation or a detailed description of an environment so may result in the reader the impression or the illusion that " he saw it myself " or take yourself directly to the action in part without a mediating narrator. Roland Barthes calls this the " reality effect", Genette calls it a " mimetic illusion ", as mimesis can relate in the proper sense only to the literal imitation of speech, according to Plato.

Approaches

The art of storytelling is just to play with unclear positions. Often contradictory narrators encounter locations such as the simultaneity of internal and external perspective ( mise en abyme ). Therefore, attempts to classify narrative perspectives and grapple with models and typologies, always succeed only partially. As an aid to understanding such abstractions can sometimes be reasonable.

Narrative perspective in Stanzel

A common scheme is the typological model of narrative situations of Franz K. Stanzel. It differs whether narrators an internal or external perspective hold (perspective ), whether the narrator is with the figure identical or not (person) and whether a narrator clearly to light ( mode). Therefore, on the level of the mode, it differs also the narrator of a reflector-character, so usually the main character is meant, from whose perspective the story unfolds.

A concrete example, which is based in Stanzel's typological circle very close to the ideal-typical model of Personalen narrative, would be the narrated monologue in which no narrator 's voice is to be distinguished from the characters' speech. Here the narrator would certainly not identical with the figure, as in the first-person narrative, but would have an inside perspective.

Narrative perspective in Genette

Gérard Genette distinguishes, in contrast to Stanzel, between mode (Who sees them? ) And voice (who speaks? ). The terms distance and focalization relate to the mode of the concept of diegesis to the voice. The focalization refers to what the narrator knows about the character and the narrated world, the distance ( or proximity ) can be of the type of speech ( direct speech, indirect speech, etc. ) can be derived.

The narrator can occur after Genette in the plot as a character, so be part of the diegesis, or not. Both narrative situations can each be further divided into " inside - analyzed results " and " external observed events ":