JONAS GRETHLEIN AND ANTONIOS RENGAKOS (EDS.), Narratology and Interpretation: The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature

JONAS GRETHLEIN and ANIONICS RENGAKOS (eds.), Narratology and Interpretation: The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature. 2009. Pp. VII, 630. Walter De Gruyter. 99.95 [euro] (Hardcover) ISBN 9783110214529 The pioneering work done in 1980s and 1990s by scholars such as Irene de Jong and Massimo Fusillo established models of structuralist narratology as an important tool for of ancient However, last twenty years or so have seen approaches such as feminism and cultural history contributing to a critique of premises and practices of structuralist narratology, and development of a variety of separate narratologies with their own subject-specific aims. This volume situates itself as a response to these developments, aiming, according to back cover blurb, to draw out the subtler possibilities of narratological analysis for of ancient texts. The results are mixed; while some of articles combine narratological concepts with other frames of interpretative reference to powerful effect, or subject narratological practice to critical examination through its application to texts, others recycle traditional lines of approach with little regard for recent theoretical developments in narratology and elsewhere, resulting in pieces which are neither interpretatively incisive nor narratologically illuminating. Nevertheless, complexity and interest of questions volume tackles make engagement with it a rewarding process. The introduction gives a brief account of recent narratological developments (pp. 1-3) and a synopsis of book's contents (pp. 4-11). The former is only very sparingly sketched and will not be of much use to uninitiated. (1) More importantly, by spending only three and a half pages introducing topic, editors miss opportunity for a more thoroughgoing conceptual engagement with premises of narratological method. Seeking a middle ground between structural clarity of classical narratology and interpretative breadth of newer models, editors recommend adhering to narratology in singular so as to preserve its conceptual independence, while also using it as a heuristic tool for interpretation (p. 3). Thus they articulate a version of narratology which 'will not deliver fully developed interpretations', but which present[s] observations which ... are sufficiently formal to enrich various readings (p. 3). Frustratingly, they do not articulate in enough detail their reasons for taking this position, and do not engage to any extent with narratological developments they have flagged up. Not only do they not deal with numerous challenges mounted from various angles to objectivity of narratological models, (2) their conception of narratology as a basically neutral formalist base for other modes of is problematized by some of essays in volume, which show precisely how difficult it is to free one's taxonomizing from interpretative considerations, and how certain interpretative situations require a more or less radical reconsideration of narrative theory's foundational motifs. (3) We might wonder whether clear profile (p. 3) of narratological project is not always an illusion, and whether narratology as a set of concepts and methodologies might rather be seen to emerge from, and bear traces of, implications in other conceptual and heuristic networks. It is worth considering forces that regulate this emergence, and what is at stake in violent rupture necessary to create for narratology a 'pure' formalized space. Genette's move of treating narratives as the development given to a verbal form ... expansion of a verb is a useful pointer in this respect. (4) For Genette, 'I walk' is a minimal form of narrative. This linking of narrativity to a basic linguistic gesture masks how such an account constructs narrativity, rather than simply finding it inherent in things; conceptualizing essence of narrativity as recounting of action requires an erasure of complexities of category 'action' in order to construct an objectivity for datum 'I walk'. …