Narratology is perhaps best understood as a term with a stricter and a looser sense. Broadly speaking, it is the name given to the critical and theoretical study of the numerous forms of narrative discourse, especially in literary and film studies. More precisely, however, it designates a theoretical movement with its origins in the French structuralist thought of the 1960s and 70s, to which most subsequent analyses of narrative have been indebted - hence the extension of the term.
The narratological approach is characterised by its overriding concern with narrative structure, and the close attention it pays to the effects that this structure has on the shaping and unfolding of narratives. It scrutinises the internal relations of a narrative's component parts, and dissects how these
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Citation: Rudrum, David. "Narratology". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 November 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1252, accessed 23 November 2024.]
