Paradigm Shift in Plot Models: An Outline of the History of Narratology

The short history of narratology (i.e., narrative theory inspired by classical structuralism) has proven to be long enough for the discipline to undergo some substantial paradigmatic changes. Furthermore, although on the surface narratology manifests a relatively coherent and almost monolithic theoretical project, it includes in fact diverse methods and orientations. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of a paradigm change in narratological models of plot and to describe it in terms of shifts within the range of conceptualizations available in the formalist-structuralist tradition. More specifically, this paradigmatic change consists of a shift from structural descriptions of action-structures in classical structuralism to semantic descriptions of narrative modalities in recent developments in narratology. Yet this shift should not be described as a punctual transition but as a dialectical development, leading from the earlier ideology of classical structuralism to the gradual domination of semantics in narrative theory. To delineate this paradigm shift, a twofold argument will be put forward: (1) In theory, the concept of plot appears in classical structuralism as part of the attempt to describe the action-scheme in narrative texts. In practice, however, structuralist plot models address a more comprehensive object and much broader questions. The gap between official pronouncements of structuralist poetics, made in manifestolike pieces (Barthes 1966b; Genette 1982 [1964]), and implications