Prose

Question 1

What are characteristics of narrative fiction?

Answer 1

• (mostly) written in prose (natural flow of speech)
• Represents a fictional world
• Organised sequence of events which cause change
• Always mediated
• Quasi-mimetic evocation of real-life experience (experientiality)

Question 2

What’s a novel?

Answer 2

a fictitious prose narrative of book length portraying characters and actions credibly representative of real life in a continuous plot (COD)

Question 3

What are sub genres of prose fiction?

Answer 3

• society novel
• Industrial novel
• Historical novel
• Travel novel
• Novel of education (Bildungsroman)
• Crime novel
• Psychological novel
• Gothic novel
• Epistolary novel

Question 4

What’s a society novel?

Answer 4

Set in high society circles

Question 5

What’s a industrial novel?

Answer 5

Deals with class issues

Question 6

What’s an epistolary novel?

Answer 6

the narrative is conveyed entirely by an exchange of letters

Question 7

What are different kinds of short stories?

Answer 7

• unity of effect (E. A. Poe)
• Significant moment (James Joyce: epiphany)
• Iceberg theory (Ernest Hemingway)
• slice of life (Virginia Woolf)

Question 8

What is the unity of effect?

Answer 8

effect the piece has on the reader is essential

Question 9

What’s the significant moment?

Answer 9

short story focuses on specific moment, suddenly understanding something, moment of enlightenment

Question 10

What’s the iceberg theory?

Answer 10

reader is left to fill in the gap for themselves, important aspects are not mentioned

Question 11

What’s the slice of life?

Answer 11

as close to reality as possible, random part of random individual, boring to some people

Question 12

What’s the difference between story and discourse?

Answer 12

Story: events and existence (WHAT?)
Discourse: all techniques of mediation (HOW?)

Question 13

Stanzel: What is first person narrative situation?

Answer 13

first-person narrative situation: the narrator is part of the story, limited POV, we transfer our own limitation to fictional characters, first-person pronoun

Question 14

Stanzel: What is the Figural narrative situation?

Answer 14

Figural narrative situation: heterodiegetic narrator and internal focalisation (the narrator is not part of the story, but adopts the limited POV)

Question 15

Stanzel: What is the authorial narrative situation?

Answer 15

Authorial narrative situation: narrator is not a character in the story but knows everything about it

Question 16

What does I as a witness mean?

Answer 16

I as witness: homodiegetic narrator who witnesses and reports the events that are narrated but who is not the protagonist

Question 17

What does I as a protagonist mean?

Answer 17

I as protagonist: narrators are often a character in the story they’re telling, when the homodiegetic narrator is also the protagonist of the story, he or she is called an autodiegetic narrator

Question 18

What is an overt narrator?

Answer 18

overt: a narrative situation where the narrator is present as a distinct personality. An overt narrator seems to have a distinct personality, someone who makes his or her opinions known.

Question 19

What is a covert narrator?

Answer 19

Covert: hardly noticeable

Question 20

What is the narrating I?

Answer 20

narrating I: in a homodiegetic narrative situation the narrator’s person and perception of events at the time of narration.

Question 21

What is the experiencing I?

Answer 21

experiencing I: in a homodiegetic narrative situation the narrator’s perception of events at the time of their occurrence.

Question 22

Stanzel: You-narrative, We-narrative, It-narrative?

Answer 22

To define the narrative situation, the determinant is the type of pronoun used to refer to narratee.

Question 23

Genette: What is homodiegetic narration?

Answer 23

homodiegetic narration: narrative which is told by a narrator who is also a character in the story, narrator is on the same level as characters

Question 24

Genette: What is autodiegetic narration?

Answer 24

Autodiegetic narration: If the homodiegetic narrator is also the protagonist of the narrative, it is an autodiegetic narrator.

Question 25

Genette: What is heterodiegetic narration?

Answer 25

Heterodiegetic narration: narrative which is told by a narrator who is NOT a character in the story, no presence on the level as characters

Question 26

Bal: What is focalisation?

Answer 26

focalisation: aspect of narration which deals with the question ‘who sees’, ‘whose perspective is adopted?’

Question 27

Bal: What is a zero focaliser?

Answer 27

Zero (narrator focaliser): The narrator can recount events from a position outside the story, adopting the omniscient point of view of someone who, for some reason, knows everything about the story.

Question 28

Bal: What is a internal character focaliser?

Answer 28

Internal (character focaliser): : in internal focalisation the focus of perception of a character in the story is adopted. This type of focaliser is thus also called character focaliser

Question 29

Bal: What is an external focaliser?

Answer 29

External focaliser: ‘camera-eye’, narrator focalizer or possibly reflector focalizer, focalizer can only see visible focalized objects): External focalisation has the centre of perception outside the story and thus this type of focaliser is also called narrator focaliser

Question 30

What is matrix or frame or an embedded narrative?

Answer 30

Matrix/frame narrative, embedded narrative: how another story is put into the story

Question 31

What is mis-en-abyme?

Answer 31

Mis-en-Abyme: In film theory and literary theory, it refers to the technique of inserting a story within a story. 

Question 32

Genette: What is the first degree narrator?

Answer 32

first degree narrator (narrator on discourse level)

Question 33

Genette: What is the second degree narrator?

Answer 33

second degree (narrator on story level)

Question 34

Genette: What is the third degree narrator?

Answer 34

third degree (narrator on level of story within story within story)

Question 35

What are the four narration modes?

Answer 35

- report - dialogue - description - comment

Question 36

What is a description?

Answer 36

description: a narrative mode that represents things that can be seen, heard or felt in some way. Description is a narrative mode that represents objects in space, that is to say existents of the story, things that can be seen, heard or felt in some way. Traditional rhetoric distinguishes between the description of place, the description of time, the description of character.

Question 37

What is a comment?

Answer 37

a narrative mode where the narrator explicitly or implicitly evaluates events or characters in the story.

Question 38

What are mimetic vs. Diegetic modes?

Answer 38

Mimetic vs. Diegetic modes: mimesis (the direct presentation of speech and action) diegesis (the verbal representation of events).