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Mieke Bal, Narratologie, Les Instances du Récit: Essais sur la signification narrative dans quatre romans modernes
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Ragland-Sullivan, Mary E. |
| Copyright Year | 1979 |
| Abstract | Formerly a professor in a department of textology and currently in a department of literary theory, Mieke Bal's interests lie within current trends in structuralist and semiological studies. Because her theoretical and pedagogical activities are closely connected, her book combines concept and method, showing how her theories might actually be applied in a literature classroom. In a long introduction Bal sets forth the goal of her book: to make a contribution to the study of narrative signs by demonstrating how the "narrativity" of a roman brings its part to the signification of a total text. To this end she provides a list of definitions which are qualified as provisory and operational. Narrative phenomena are said to be determined by a triplicate stratification, specifically characteristic of narrative, as opposed to poetic or dramatic. It is through these phenomena which act as signs that unperceived meanings (signifieds) may be revealed. Thus, "narratology" is the science (French sense of the word) which seeks through a study of narrativity to formulate the theory of the relations between the three levels of narrative— récit, histoire, texte—and their inclusive levels of narrator, actors, and focalisateur. There is, however, a problem in the study of the narrative, as Bal sees it: critics either fail to evolve clear concepts (Dolezel and Schmid's concept of text, p. 11 ) or they differ with each other to such a degree that one must wonder why. For example, supporting the concept of triplicate narrative structure, Barthes sees the récit as being on the bias of the signified while Genette defines it in terms of the relations between signified and signifier. Bal proposes to define these three levels more clearly by combining certain structural concerns with semiological concepts. Thus, to the structuralist question of, "How does the story become a narrative text?" she proposes a semiological question in answer: "How does the narrative text become a story?" Suggesting that the answer to this second question lies in the special function of the récit, Bal defines récit as the signified of a narrative text (at the linguistic level) which, at the same time, signifies a story which transcends its linguistic ties. Decrying the frequent confusion between the terms text and récit or récit and story, she clarifies her view of the tripartite structure by use of Genette's conception of focalization, to which she adds refinements of her own. Going beyond Genette's precision of the traditional "point of view" to internal and external, Bal sees focalization as including any object of the vue. Thus, she separates the term from narration itself, evolving symmetrical notions of narration—the story in words—and focalization—the multileveled aspects of the vision portrayed. This innovation helps her to separate text, story, and récit by using various degrees of focalization to explain the complex and often ambiguous interplay of linguistic elements in combination with nonlinguistic implications. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 6 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/download/13364/14447 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
