Science and Nescience: Narratology Stripped Bare, The Case of the Narrator

Résumé 0

Narratology (literally: the science of narrative) is usually regarded as one of the most developed sectors of literary theory. It is not uncommon for scholars to invoke its advanced methodology, its precise categories of analysis, the discriminating power of its terminology—even when it comes to theorizing or analyzing literary genres that do not a priori fall within its field of application. But there is another discourse on narratology, less widespread, according to which, in this domain of theorizing, “there is now controversy on almost everything”. I would be inclined to adopt this second discourse instead and I myself contributed to the controversy in my work on the concept of the narrator. In this article, I would like to return to the close association, which goes as far as identification, between narratology and the theory of the existence of a narrator in all narratives. More specifically, this theory postulates the existence of a narrator who merges with the author in all non-fictional narratives (historical narratives, biographies, autobiographies, etc.) and the existence of a fictional narrator different from the author in all fictional narratives (novels, short stories, tales, etc.). I will refer to this theory as pan-narrator theory and I will focus exclusively on the version of the theory that concerns fictional narratives.In the first part, I will present the essential aspects of the association between narratology and the pan-narrator theory of fictional narratives. In the second part, I will make a few remarks on the context of the emergence, then of the gradual establishment, of the theory, which may, it seems to me, have a more general relevance for the various sectors of literary theory.