A question by Michael Frank on the Narrative-L:
following this thread leads me once again to a question that – in one version another – has bugged me for years: does any account of anything that includes a cause and effect dimension count as narrative . . . if i remember some of seymour chatman’s work accurately, it would seem that even verbal description [as distinguished from pictorial depiction] can have a cause/effect implication . . . . so maybe what i’m asking is “what _isn’t_ narrative?”
My response:
On the issue of narrative-ness, narrativity, etc. there are of course many positions. Some are discussed in a volume I co-edited with John Pier,
Theorizing Narrativity. (Narratologia, 12). Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
http://www.degruyter.com/cont/fb/li/detailEn.cfm?id=IS-9783110202441-1
My view is that there are of course degrees of narrativity, as well as more central and more deviant uses of the term and concept of narrative.
Some additional references on narrativity:
http://narrative.georgetown.edu/wiki/index.php/Narrativity
The discussion in Philip Sturgess's book is particularly elaborate.
Regards,
Jose Angel García Landa
University of Zaragoza
http://unizar.academia.edu/JoséAngelGarcíaLanda
Los blogs y la narratividad de la experiencia
