Komparatistik : Jahrbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft ; 2000/2001
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We may consider narratology - the structural study of narratives - in two ways, each of them implying a slightly different 'before' and 'after'. First, this important endeavor in 20th century literary studies may be regarded as the study of a specific narrative 'logic', the formal structures that unite all narratives, fictional and factual, literary and non-literary. Secondly, narratology may be regarded as the study of specific 'texts' with specific cultural functions - storehouses of 'memory' on the one hand and, on the other, 'meaning-generating devices' integrating human action with time and place, ending up in cognition, identity, values, pragmatic norms, etc. In spite of the fact that both trends diminish the role of the specific medium of a given narrative, focusing instead on a general logic or on general functions, both of them refer 'de facto' to literature as a primary field of study; moreover, they are both children, twins one might argue, of the linguistic turn at the turn of the last century, and they both 'de facto' constantly refer to language as a primary field of study. This paradigmatic shift emphasized a specific medium and its specific logic in a general perspective without losing grip of the specificity. A lesson may be learned if we quickly repaint the history and perspective of this turn in a few broad strokes.
Rezension zu Matias Martinez/Michael Scheffel: Einführung in die Erzähltheorie. München (Beck) 1999. (= Reihe Studium). 198 Seiten.
Genettes Erzähltheorie genießt gerade unter jüngeren deutschsprachigen Wissenschaftlern, die sich mit narratologischen Fragestellungen befassen, eine immer größere Popularität. Diese Tendenz dokumentiert nun auch eine 'Einführung in die Erzähltheorie', die gemeinsam von Matias Martinez (wissenschaftlicher Assistent für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft an der Universität München) und Michael Scheffel (Privatdozent für Neuere Deutsche Literatur an der Universität Göttingen) verfaßt worden ist.