Whatever Happened to Narratology?Author(s): Christine Brooke-Rose Source: Poetics Today, Vol. 11, No. 2, Narratology Revisited I (Summer, 1990), pp. 283-293Published.
Chris Brooke Rose has an agenda to determine what happened to narratology. She is concerned about the differences that exist between the poetics and poetry itself. “Did narratology ever have that air of a neo-divine activity in which to formulate is to function, and to function is to self-verify?” (pg 283). Narratology is the study the aspects of storytelling that are relevant to the mind of an individual. This relevance must be visible in all form through which the narrative is presented. According to Brooke, the ancient poets are quite diffe4rent from the modern poets and similarly there is quite a big difference with the post modern poets. She says that different analysts are more concerned about the results and functions of storytelling as a proper way of ensuring interdisciplinary in poetry.
Brooke does an analysis to determine what went wrong now that narratologists have taken differing stands and approaches in the modern era. The lack of constancy and universality as it happens in other disciplines such as mathematics and logical formulas are to blame. Modern linguistics has though been able to ensure this universality and constancy. (But the laws discovered, though often couched in learned words, rigorous analyses and diagrams, even mathematical or logical formulas, often turned out to be rather trivial) pg 283.
Currently the best theoreticians and philosophers are studied more as literature and not for their fine style of linguistics because modern theorists and linguistics do not consider those literatures as providing the guidelines that can be used to standardize narratology. They are in fact read as stories nowadays or as narratives about the text of the world or the world of the texts (pg 285). Modern linguistics has adopted the methods of incorporating creative writing with critical analysis. The students in this new system, which Brooke refers to as New Criticism have in time adapted to the new approach in linguistics. They not only need to recognize the codes, symbols and categories by going through the dictionaries but also they need to offer critical judgment of the codes, categories and symbols they encounter in every day learning in linguistics.(pg 287)
Brooke appreciates the transition she has gone through as a novelist though she may have contributed little as narratologist she learnt a lot, of which to transgress intelligently, one must know the rule while understanding every detail as to how a narrative functions (pg 290).
Why you might like this article
The article provides an analysis of the evolution of poetry and literature in general. It helps someone understand how literature has evolved over time and how modern literature differs with ancient literature. For instance one gets to know why philosophy has become fiction in modern literature and why it is difficult to standardize the modern literature. “Indeed, philosophical articles, at least those I read in American literary reviews, frequently refer to theories as stories (e.g., in this story we have to accept thatpg 285), or even as scenarios. It is as if phiction and filosophy had changed places).” It helps someone gain knowledge on the role of narratologists in evolution of literature while enabling one understand the importance of creative and critic writing.
Works cited
Whatever Happened to Narratology?Author(s): Christine Brooke-RoseSource: Poetics Today, Vol. 11, No. 2, Narratology Revisited I (Summer, 1990), pp. 283-293Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772617 .Accessed: 24/10/2013 18:04
