Study On Genette’s Theory Of Narrative Discourse

Criticized by the post-structuralism and the historicism,the classical narratology hit the rock bottom at the beginning of 1980s and has remained dumb since then,and some scholars even have declared its death.However,in fact,the classical narratology is not out of date,for it provides the new narratology with essential concepts and analytical models,and builds up a complementary and interdependent relationship with it,which will yield a win-win situation.An increasing number of narrative theorists have come to review the theories and concepts of the classical narratology,in order to continually promote the development of narratology in the new context.In the classical period,narratology had divided into many different schools,with many classical theories developed,of which the most prominent is the classical paradigm proposed by Genette in Narrative Discourse.As a cornerstone theory of the western classical narratology,Genette’s narrative discourse theory has enormously influenced the construction and interpretation of contemporary concepts of western literary criticism.However,in China,the study of Genette’s theory still has some defects such as the lack of systematization and the excessive labels on some ideas.In view of this,this paper will review Genette’s narrative discourse theory,and try to interpret the core concept of the most significant contribution or of the most argument,and sort out the original ideas in this theory;in addition,this paper also cast a view of Genette’s narrative discourse theory as a part of the development course of narratology,in order to find out how it laid foundations for the classical narratology,and how the other narrative theories,including post-classical narratology,contributed to its revision and development;Finally,in the background of the 21th century,till which the narratology has experienced 50 years of development,this paper will interpret some labeled ideas,to help us objectively sort out its advantages and disadvantages,in hope that we can re-valuate Genette’s theory’s academic value in a context of more significant historical development.It introduces the Genette’s sources of theory and background of creation.The classical narrative theorists of Genette were profoundly influenced by the Russian formalism,and even more profoundly by Saussure’s Structuralism Linguistics.Propp’s Folktale Morphology not only to provide inspiration for the methodological formalism,but also be considered as the foundation of the structure of narrative literature.Saussure’s Structuralism Linguistics is to provide a theoretical paradigm for the structural narratology,and set the foundation for their methodology.In many scopes of Genette’s narrative discourse theory,narrative time,narrative focus and narrative voice is the core theoretical category.In the theory of narrative time,the interpretation of Genette distinction timing,duration and frequency,combined with time philosophy interdisciplinary research,time consciousness carding Genette narrative time theory lurking behind,will lead us to a more profound experience of time.In the narrative focalization,analyze clearly distinction between"say" and "see" of Genette,and the confusion of focalization types,perform deeper explore on focalization of the classical narratology and postclassical narratology(take cognitive narratology for example).In the narrative voice theory,choose to take one of the most groundbreaking "narrative stratification" and "Syrian revolution" two concepts are analyzed,discussion quoted at how Genette interpretation of the transition from rhetorical terms to learn and become a literary narrative fiction way,also carding a number of scholars on the "Implied Author" controversy,explore Genette contribution of the department,and attempts on the part of scholars simply be classified as "against the implied author" school of viewpoints to the label of the amendment.Of course,there are many scopes in Genette’s theory of narrative discourse,this article only choose the most contributing or controversial categories to analyze and discuss,there are also many other categories need further research and analysis.