Narratology

Narratology is the theory of narrative, studying the structure, levels, and means of the artistic presentation of events. It arose on structuralist ground in the late 1960s; the term was introduced by Tzvetan Todorov. Narratology distinguishes story (fabula — the sequence of events) from discourse (the manner of their presentation), and investigates the narrator, point of view (focalization), narrative levels, and narrative time (order, duration, frequency). The classic model was developed by Gérard Genette in 'Narrative Discourse' (1972), which introduced the concepts of focalization, analepsis (flashback), and prolepsis (flashforward). Significant contributions were also made by Roland Barthes, A.-J. Greimas, Mieke Bal, and Franz Stanzel. The rise of 'postclassical narratology' extended it into cognitive, feminist, and transmedial studies. The narratological toolkit is indispensable for analyzing prose composition.