Raphaël Baroni

Dramatized Analepsis and Fadings in Verbal Narratives

Flashback and flashforward, as well as analepsis and prolepsis in the terminology of Gérard Genette, belong to some of the few almost undisputed concepts in narrative theory. But if we dig deeper into their original definitions, we come to realize that they appear either vague or as an oversimplification of a more complex issue. In order to add precision to narrative theory’s efforts to analyze time shifts, I propose a distinction between dramatized analepsis, which is synonymous with flashback, and undramatized analepsis, which is not. Dramatized analepsis and flashback are synonyms because each involves an enactment of the past, while undramatized analepsis refers to past events but does not involve a real shift from one space-time to another. After looking at how this distinction can illuminate some paradigmatic cases in film and graphic narrative, I consider how these distinctions apply to verbal narratives. In addition, I discuss “fading effects” in verbal narratives, effects that follow from the progressive transition from one space-time to another. Finally, I suggest how these tools can illuminate the handling of temporality in Guy de Maupassant’s The Signal. More generally, this essay contributes to narratological understanding of the intersequential organization of narratives by adding greater precision to Genette’s discussion of analepsis by means of the distinction between dramatized and undramatized analepsis. Methodologically, the essay shows the value of transmedial comparisons, since my case about verbal narrative follows from work on narrative in visual media.

Narrative forms of action and the dangers of ‘derivations’ in narratology

This article attempts to define the form that action takes when it is the focus of narrative plot, in a manner that avoids certain detours in the interpretation of narrative phenomenon and its anthropological function. Two such detours are evoked at the outset. First, structuralist narratology has had a tendency to analyze the “actional” structures of the narrative fabula autonomously. This has led narratalogists to lose sight of the function that actions have in conversational, or oral narrative, and to generalize a theory of action from this partial view. Second, cognitive theorists, despite having decompartimentalized narrative structures, have generally based their work on a schematic model of intentional action that is too general and too simplistic to properly determine the function that narrated actions fulfill. The author highlights the ways that certain forms of narrated action produce suspense or curiosity when used in conversational narrative. Drawing attention to the fundamental role of polemical actions in the dynamics of narration allows oppose two complementary conceptions of action: whereas “narrative” approaches highlight the uniqueness, the under-determinedness, or the surprising character of the narrated event , other forms of analysis seek to draw attention to the rules behind the apparent novelty of the event.

Formes narratives de l’action et dangers de dérives en narratologie

Abstract Cet article vise à définir précisément la forme que prend l’action quand elle fait l’objet d’une mise en intrigue par un récit, de manière à éviter certaines dérives dans l’interprétation du phénoméne de la narrativité et de sa fonction anthropologique. Deux formes de dérives ou de réductionnisme sont d’abord envisagées : d’une part, la narratologie structuraliste a eu tendance à analyser de manière autonome les structures actionnelles formant la ‘fable’ des récits, ce qui l’a amenée à perdre de vue la fonction que remplissaient ces actions au niveau de l’interaction narrative et à généraliser la théorie de l’action ainsi dégagée ; d’autre part, les travaux d’orientation cognitiviste, bien qu’ils aient ‘décloisonné’ l’analyse des structures narratives, ont eu tendance à se fonder sur un modèle schématique de l’action planifiée à la fois trop général et trop simpliste pour parvenir à cerner la fonction proprement narrative que remplissent les actions narrées. L’auteur propose de mettre en évidence, au niveau de l’interaction discursive, la fonction que remplissent certaines formes d’action narrées dans la mise en intrigue, notamment par le biais des effets de suspense et de curiosité qu’elles contribuent à produire. La mise en évidence du rôle fondamental que jouent les actions polémiques dans la dynamique du récit permet de conclure en opposant deux points de vue complémentaires sur l’action : alors que les approches ‘narratives’ mettent en évidence la singularité de l’événement narré, son caractère inédit, surprenant ou sous-déterminé, d’autres formes d’analyse ou de textualisation de l’action cherchent au contraire à cerner la règle ou la régularité derrière l’apparente ‘nouveauté’ de l’événement.