Narratology and Classics: A Practical Guide

291 Pages·2014·2.359 MB·English

by  Irene J. F. de Jong

Title Pages
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Narratology and Classics: A Practical Guide
Irene J. F. de Jong
Print publication date: 2014
Print ISBN-13: 9780199688692
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2015
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199688692.001.0001
Title Pages
(p.i) Narratology and Classics (p.ii)
(p.iii) Narratology and Classics
(p.iv)
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© Irene J. F. de Jong 2014
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Contents
Title Pages
Preface
Part I A Narratological Primer
1 Introduction
2 Narrators and Narratees
3 Focalization
4 Time
5 Space
Part II Narratological Close Readings
6 Narratology and Epic
7 Narratology and Historiography
8 Narratology and Drama
Index of Terms
Index of Greek and Latin Passages
Preface
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Narratology and Classics: A Practical Guide
Irene J. F. de Jong
Print publication date: 2014
Print ISBN-13: 9780199688692
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2015
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199688692.001.0001
(p.v) Preface
The idea of writing this practical guide occurred to me when I
heard from different sources that colleagues were using the
glossary of my Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey
(2001) in their teaching as a kind of ‘crash’ introduction to
narratology. This made me realize that, while there is no
shortage of general introductions to narratology, there might
be a need for a book that is geared specifically to classical
students and that offers a practical introduction. The current
volume is ‘practical’ in several senses. First, it presents a
selection of concepts that I have come to rely on for the
analysis of classical texts over the past twenty-five years.
Second, it explains those concepts on the basis of examples
from actual texts, both ancient and modern. This juxtaposition
of ancient and modern examples is both pedagogical, the
modern ones being easier to process, and ideological, the
ancient ones showing the roots of our modern European
literature. Third, apart from a brief historical introduction that
sketches the emergence of narratology and its introduction
into classics, I refrain from giving a full, diachronic overview
of how terms and concepts have been modified over time.
Rather, I present a systematic and clear set of terms and
definitions, which, so to speak, are ready for use.
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Preface
For this is what theoretical concepts are for: not to be
introduced for their own sake or to be nit-picked endlessly, but
to be applied to texts. They should sharpen and enrich our
interpretation of texts. At the same time, theory should never
become a straightjacket. Inevitably, as in grammar, there will
be passages that are difficult to label as device A or B or
perhaps as both. In such cases the function of theory is to
highlight textual complexity, not to straighten it out. Used with
‘sprezzatura’ narratology can be a powerful instrument, one
among many developed in and after antiquity to increase our
understanding and appreciation of what classical literature
has to offer us.
In order to show the interpretative benefits to be reaped from
putting on a pair of narratological glasses, the second part of
the book contains a series of close readings of texts. Here the
concepts introduced systematically in the first part are shown
at work in situ. Such literary close readings are my personal
favourite of the many applications for narratology. Others will
use it for different purposes, (p.vi) for example to uncover
ideologies or relate formal devices to historical contexts.
In writing this book I have made use of much earlier work, in
particular the Introductions that I wrote for the edited
volumes in the series Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative:
Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek
Literature; Time in Ancient Greek Literature; and Space in
Ancient Greek Literature. They have been expanded and
revised considerably, however, and I have added a chapter on
focalization, a subject not (yet) covered in the series. These
three volumes also provided me with a treasure trove of
passages from which I have thankfully culled many of my
examples. I have added examples from Latin literature, which
meant a pleasant return to texts I had hardly read since my
student days. The three close readings in the second part are
also reworkings of earlier studies, but they have been revised,
expanded, and updated almost beyond recognition. I quote
ancient texts mainly from Oxford Classical Texts or Teubner
editions. Translations are my own adaptations from existent
ones.
Although written primarily for an audience familiar with
classical literature, this book may also be of interest to
narratologists in other fields. The days of Erich Auerbach or
Ernst Robert Curtius, when scholars would as a matter of
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Preface
course be steeped in classical as well as modern literature and
thus aware of the long pedigree of novelistic devices, are long
past. The following pages offer non-classicist readers a quick
introduction to early manifestations of the narrative
phenomena they are investigating in their own texts.
I would like to thank a number of my Amsterdam colleagues
and graduate students who read (parts of) the penultimate
version of this book and provided valuable comments: Aniek
van den Eersten, Jo Heirman, Niels Koopman, and Marietje
van Erp Taalman Kip. I would also like to acknowledge my
great pleasure and gratitude for the generous suggestions I
received in a masterclass at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1
March 2013, from a group of extremely talented PhD students:
Sophie Bocksberger, Chrysanthos Chrysanthou, Camille Geisz,
Dan Jolowicz, Tom Mackenzie, Iarla Manny, Enrico Prodi,
Athena Siapera, Helen Todd, and Lucy VanEssen-Fishman.
Finally, I would like to thank the two anonymous readers of
OUP for valuable suggestions and corrections, and Elizabeth
Upper for polishing my English.
This book is dedicated to a person who does not ‘give a hoot’
about narratology but who is a patient narratee of my endless
narratives of academic daily life, Tjang Chang.
Page 3 of 3
Introduction
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Narratology and Classics: A Practical Guide
Irene J. F. de Jong
Print publication date: 2014
Print ISBN-13: 9780199688692
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2015
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199688692.001.0001
Introduction
J. F. de Jong Irene
DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199688692.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter presents a bird's-eye view of the history of
narratology, beginning with Plato's distinction between
narrator-text and character-text or speech he made in his
Republic and Aristotle's notion of plot which he developed in
Poetics 7. It also considers E.M. Forster's series of lectures on
Aspects of the Novel, in which he discussed the central
importance of ‘time’ in narrative, and the development of
narrative techniques over time. Finally, it charts the
introduction of narratology into classics that marks the
gradual process of the integration of modern theory.
Keywords:   history, narratology, Plato, Aristotle, plot, E.M. Forster, time,
narrative, classics, modern theory
1.1. A Bird’s-Eye View of the History of Narratology
The term ‘narratology’ was coined in 1969 by Tzvetan Todorov
in his Grammaire du Decameron, but the interest in the theory
of narrative is, of course, much older. In fact, narratology can
be said to have started in antiquity, when a number of central
concepts were developed. One example is the crucial
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Introduction
distinction between narrator-text and character-text or
speech, as made by Plato in his Republic III.392–3:
[Socrates:] ‘Is not everything that is said by mythologists
or poets a narration (διήγησις) of past, present, or future
things?’ [Adeimantus:] ‘What else could it be?’, he said.
[Socrates:] ‘Do they not proceed either by one-layered
narration (ἁπλῃ διηγήσει) or through representation (διὰ
μιμήσεως) or both?’ […] ‘Do you know the first lines of
the Iliad in which the poet says that Chryses implored
Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that the king
was angry and that Chryses, failing of his request,
cursed the Achaeans?’ [Adeimantus:] ‘I do.’ [Socrates:]
‘You know then that up until these verses “Chryses had
come to the ships of the Achaeans to gain release for his
daughter […] He began to entreat the whole body of the
Achaeans, but especially the two sons of Atreus” the poet
himself is the speaker and does not even attempt to
suggest to us that anyone but himself is speaking. But he
delivers what follows as if he himself were Chryses and
tries as much as possible to make us feel that not Homer
is the speaker, but the priest, an old man: “Sons of
Atreus, and you other well-greaved Achaeans […] release
my dear child to me”.’
Plato distinguishes between the poet speaking as himself and
speaking as if he were one of the characters, that is,
impersonating one of the characters. In other words, he
recognizes the difference between dihēgēsis and mimēsis, or
between narrator-text and character-text.
(p.4) Another example of ancient ‘proto-narratology’ is the
notion of plot, as developed by Aristotle in Poetics 7:
We have already laid down that tragedy is a
representation of an action which is complete, whole and
of a certain magnitude […] By ‘whole’ I mean possessing
a beginning, middle, and end. By ‘beginning’ I mean that
which does not have a necessary connection with a
preceding event, but which itself can give rise naturally
to some further fact or occurrence. An ‘end’, by contrast,
is something which naturally occurs after a preceding
event, whether by necessity or as a general rule, but
need not be followed by anything else. The ‘middle’
involves causal connections with both what precedes and
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