Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

narrative The distinctive mode of discourse that we use when we tell a story, the terms narrative and story being more or less synonymous as names for the end-product of such discourse. In practice, a completed narrative will nearly always contain other than narrative discourse: in a short story or novel, for example, narrative passages will alternate with descriptive or analytical ones, and with passages of dialogue, all of which form part of a narrative whole but might be analysed into their distinct discursive modes. Pure narrative, every sentence of which takes a narrative form and could be construed as advancing the story nearer to its conclusion, is uncommon; only in the most economical kinds of narrative – jokes are perhaps the best example – are we likely to meet with it. Narrative is a universal phenomenon, to be found in one form or another in every culture of which we have knowledge, both pre-literate and literate. In societies without writing, oral narratives extend all the way from local fables or legends to cosmological myths and racial epics, which may be memorized and recited by itinerant storytellers. In societies with writing, narrative pervades the whole of culture, and can be found in brief, elementary forms such as the obituary inscription on a gravestone, or in immensely elaborate ones, such as multivolume works of historiography or of fiction. Our daily ... log in or subscribe to read full text