further musings on the first person
Feb. 5th, 2004 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321A while ago I posted some musings on pov which resulted in some interesting discussion about the peculiarities about first-person pov.
Here's what the narratologist Gerard Genette has to say about that:
Gerard Genette, from 'Order in Narrative, extracted in Martin McQuillan, Tha Narrative Reader, Routledge, 2000:
The 'first-person' narrative lends itself better than any other to anticipation, by the very fact of its avowedly retrospective character, which authorizes the narrator to allude to the future and in particular to his present situation, for these to some extent form part of his role. Robinson Crusoe can tell us almost at the beginning that the lecture his father gave to turn him aside from nautical adventures was 'truly prophetic', even though at the time he had no idea of it, and Rousseau, with the episode of the combs, does not fail to vouch for not only his past innocence but also the vigor of his retrospective indignation: 'In writing this I feel my pulse quicken yet.
Here's what the narratologist Gerard Genette has to say about that:
Gerard Genette, from 'Order in Narrative, extracted in Martin McQuillan, Tha Narrative Reader, Routledge, 2000:
The 'first-person' narrative lends itself better than any other to anticipation, by the very fact of its avowedly retrospective character, which authorizes the narrator to allude to the future and in particular to his present situation, for these to some extent form part of his role. Robinson Crusoe can tell us almost at the beginning that the lecture his father gave to turn him aside from nautical adventures was 'truly prophetic', even though at the time he had no idea of it, and Rousseau, with the episode of the combs, does not fail to vouch for not only his past innocence but also the vigor of his retrospective indignation: 'In writing this I feel my pulse quicken yet.