Narrative and point of view

This chapter launches a simultaneous investigation of the conventions of temporal progression and subjective point of view in narratives. Historically, the two have been seen as mutually exclusive, as in Plato’s opposition of diegesis and mimesis, and Benveniste’s of histoire and discours . More recently, Mimo Caenepeel proposes, in the same vein, that subjective clauses of free indirect discourse do not (generally) advance narrative time, and suggests that this is because stative aspect, which does not (generally) induce a temporal update, is obligatory for clauses with a subjective point of view. The chapter will critically examine this interesting proposal.