Ordre, durée et fréquence : la narratologie genettienne à la rescousse des récits brefs ?

The notion of « short narrative » is a real problem for medievalists, because it is at the crossroads of two issues: defining what narrative brevity is, and knowing if there is a « brief genre » for medieval literature. Gérard Genette’s works, mainly those related to narratology in Narrative Discour...

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Main Author: Nicolas Garnier
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Société de Langues et de Littératures Médiévales d'Oc et d'Oil 2021-06-01
Series:Perspectives Médiévales
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Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/peme/36768
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author Nicolas Garnier
author_facet Nicolas Garnier
author_sort Nicolas Garnier
collection DOAJ
description The notion of « short narrative » is a real problem for medievalists, because it is at the crossroads of two issues: defining what narrative brevity is, and knowing if there is a « brief genre » for medieval literature. Gérard Genette’s works, mainly those related to narratology in Narrative Discourse, could then provide help. Notions of order, duration and frequencies developed by Gérard Genette to characterize stories could help us perceive the narrative unity of these omnifarious medieval texts. We studied six texts from the anthological manuscript 837 of the BnF: the Dit du Barisel, the Châtelaine de Vergy, Narcisse, the Enfant remis au soleil, the Vie de Sainte Élisabeth and the Vair Palefroi. Overall, there was some homogeneity: analepses and prolepses are somewhat undeveloped, there are few pauses, and beginnings are often iterative summaries. Nevertheless, some marked differences seem to show up there is no genre common to these texts. What is more, the tools developed by Genette, more devoted to concerns of temporality, seem too fragile to bring together these narratives: it is indeed difficult to determine whether a short text is necessarily a rapid text. Finally, Genette’s narratology exhibits more an aesthetics of brevity than a brief form or a brief genre.
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spelling doaj-art-34a91344d8ac42f8b42a7133d115b1f82025-01-13T15:29:45ZengSociété de Langues et de Littératures Médiévales d'Oc et d'OilPerspectives Médiévales2262-55342021-06-014210.4000/peme.36768Ordre, durée et fréquence : la narratologie genettienne à la rescousse des récits brefs ?Nicolas GarnierThe notion of « short narrative » is a real problem for medievalists, because it is at the crossroads of two issues: defining what narrative brevity is, and knowing if there is a « brief genre » for medieval literature. Gérard Genette’s works, mainly those related to narratology in Narrative Discourse, could then provide help. Notions of order, duration and frequencies developed by Gérard Genette to characterize stories could help us perceive the narrative unity of these omnifarious medieval texts. We studied six texts from the anthological manuscript 837 of the BnF: the Dit du Barisel, the Châtelaine de Vergy, Narcisse, the Enfant remis au soleil, the Vie de Sainte Élisabeth and the Vair Palefroi. Overall, there was some homogeneity: analepses and prolepses are somewhat undeveloped, there are few pauses, and beginnings are often iterative summaries. Nevertheless, some marked differences seem to show up there is no genre common to these texts. What is more, the tools developed by Genette, more devoted to concerns of temporality, seem too fragile to bring together these narratives: it is indeed difficult to determine whether a short text is necessarily a rapid text. Finally, Genette’s narratology exhibits more an aesthetics of brevity than a brief form or a brief genre.https://journals.openedition.org/peme/36768manuscriptordershort narrativegenrenarratologyduration
spellingShingle Nicolas Garnier
Ordre, durée et fréquence : la narratologie genettienne à la rescousse des récits brefs ?
Perspectives Médiévales
manuscript
order
short narrative
genre
narratology
duration
title Ordre, durée et fréquence : la narratologie genettienne à la rescousse des récits brefs ?
title_full Ordre, durée et fréquence : la narratologie genettienne à la rescousse des récits brefs ?
title_fullStr Ordre, durée et fréquence : la narratologie genettienne à la rescousse des récits brefs ?
title_full_unstemmed Ordre, durée et fréquence : la narratologie genettienne à la rescousse des récits brefs ?
title_short Ordre, durée et fréquence : la narratologie genettienne à la rescousse des récits brefs ?
title_sort ordre duree et frequence la narratologie genettienne a la rescousse des recits brefs
topic manuscript
order
short narrative
genre
narratology
duration
url https://journals.openedition.org/peme/36768
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