Oldal 26 [26]
Part I. Interdisciplinary Approach to Storytelling ] 25
group. Barthess critigue of his contemporary literary theory was that it was
extremely author-centered, linking the work to the biography of the author.
In Barthes interpretation, writing is not a presentation, characterization, or
notation, but rather a performative act, a kind of ,subjectless’ expression.
2.4 Genre Theory
The most common way to classify narratives is by genre, which offers a kind
of narrative template for analysis. Bruner (1996) argued that the actions of
the characters in a story and the events that occur around them make sense
in terms of the genre of the narrative structure that surrounds them.
Plato, in the second book of the Republic, distinguishes between two
kinds of narrative, the true and the fictitious, and then states that both are
educational, and that education by sagas begins in early childhood. In the
third book, he writes that narration is when the poet presents the speeches
and the events between the speeches. When the poet reproduces someone
else’s words, it is imitation (mimesis), and when the poet describes the action
without imitation, it is a narration (diegesis). In addition to emphasizing the
narrator he also draws attention to the temporality of narration. Although
Plato's work also identifies specific genres (epic poem, tragedy and comedy),
Aristotle is the thinker who put greater emphasis on developing the notion
of genre.
In Poetics, Aristotle describes how the poetic craft reaches its peak in
tragedy and comedy. Aristotle expands the definition of mimesis to include
all poetic activity. In the first part of this fragmentary work, he gives a precise
description of the distinguishing features of tragedy and comedy, and in the
second part specifies their purpose. Tragedy, according to Aristotle, is the
representation of good characters, while comedy presents bad characters in
terms of ridicule. He also describes the two genres from a formal point of
view, referring to the meter of the poem and the temporality of the narrative.
Aristotle makes a detailed comparison between epics and tragedies in terms
of length, meter and thematic features.
Already in this early work, a systematic approach to thinking about
narrative can be found. Aristotle describes narrative as the putting together
of events (pragma(ta)). He defines tragedy as consisting of six obligatory
elements, which he further groups according to their role in imitation. The
means of imitation are the plot and the characters, while the mode of imitation
is language; the objects of imitation include argument, spectacle and song.
Among the ,elements’ of narrative, Aristotle considered the most important
to be the plot (mythos), which he considered to be the imitation of actions
(and not of people). Aristotle believed that the appeal of the tragedy was
its unexpected turns (peripeteia) and realizations (anagnorisis). Aristotle
proposed five criteria for the plot: (1) it must be a ‘closed whole’ - it must