(no subject)
May. 15th, 2006 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Recently, I made a brief post on tense and pov, in particular, first person pov, and judging by the large number of comments it got, this topic seems to provoke a certain degree of interest. Today, I came upon some of my notes on the topic of the first-person and third-person narration so, in the interests of public interest, I am posting them here forthwith.
Feel free to meta-link. :-)
Roland Barthes, excerpts from 'Writing and the Novel', 1953
... the third person in the Novel. The reader will perhaps recall a novel by Agatha Christie in which all the invention consisted in concealing the murderer beneath the use of the first person of the narrative. The reader looked for him behind every 'he' in the plot: he was all the time hidden under the 'I'. Agatha Christie knew perfectly well that, in the novel, the 'I' is usually a spectator, and that it is the 'he' who is an actor. Why? The 'he' is a typical novelistic convention; like the narrative tense, it signifies and carries through the action of the novel; if the third person is absent, the novel is powerless to come into being, ...
Less ambiguous, the 'I' is thereby less typical of the novel: it is therefore at the same time the most obvious solution, when the narration remains on this side of convention (Proust's work...), and the most sophisticated, when the 'I' takes its place beyond convention and attempts to destroy it, by conferring on the narrative the spurious naturalness of taking the reader into its confidence (... Gide.) In the same way the use of the 'he' in a novel involves two opposed systems of ethics: since it represents an unquestioned convention, it attracts the most conformist and the least dissatisfied, as well as those others who have decided that, finally, this convention is necessary to the novelty of their work. In any case, it is the sign of an intelligible pact betwen society and the author; but it is also, for the latter, the most important means he has of building the world in the way that he chooses.
Me: Can you tell that Barthes, in the Fifties, was a dyed-in-the-wool modernist? Heh. I have some sympathy for that position although I came onto the scene with post-modernism in the 80s and loved the return of narrative into literature.
Mieke Bal, excerpts from Narratology, 2nd edition, 1997
Traditionally, narratives have been called, according to the 'voice' fo the narrator, 'first-person' or 'third-person novels, ... In principle, it does not make a difference to the status of the narration whether a narrrator refers to itself or not. As soon as there is language, there is a speaker who utters it; as soon as those linguistic utterances constitute a narrative text, there is a narrator, a narrating subject. From a grammatical point of view, this is always a 'first person'. In fact, the term 'third-person narrator' is absurd: a narrator is not a 'he' or a 'she'. At best the narrator can narrate about someone else, a 'he' or 'she'... Of course, this does not imply that the distinction between 'first-person' and third-person' narrratives is itself invalid. Just compare the following sentences:
a I shall be twenty-one tomorrow.
b Elizabeth will be twenty-one tomorrow.
If what I said above is valid, we may rewrite both sentences as:
(I say:) I shall be twenty-one tomorrow.
(I say:) Elizabeth will be twenty-one tomorrow.
... When in a text the narrator never refers explicity to itself as a character, we may speak of an external narrator. ... On the other hand, if the 'I' is to be identified with a character in the fabula [the story] it itself narrates, we speak of a character-bound narrator.
Me: Mieke Bal's external and character-bound narrator correspond to Gérard Genette's heterodiegetic and homodiegetic narrator. Genette is the model I used for my recent writing exercises in person. I like Bal a lot but she does privilege the reader at the expense of the writer, and that means that sometimes her analyses fall down when one attempts to turn them into fic-writing practice. I think theoretically, it is extremely helpful to realise that, no matter the person chosen, there is always that 'I' in the (I say:) part of narration. But on the other hand, there is the very practical matter of choosing what person to write in and the effect that has on the story, on the character and on the reader.
Feel free to meta-link. :-)
Roland Barthes, excerpts from 'Writing and the Novel', 1953
... the third person in the Novel. The reader will perhaps recall a novel by Agatha Christie in which all the invention consisted in concealing the murderer beneath the use of the first person of the narrative. The reader looked for him behind every 'he' in the plot: he was all the time hidden under the 'I'. Agatha Christie knew perfectly well that, in the novel, the 'I' is usually a spectator, and that it is the 'he' who is an actor. Why? The 'he' is a typical novelistic convention; like the narrative tense, it signifies and carries through the action of the novel; if the third person is absent, the novel is powerless to come into being, ...
Less ambiguous, the 'I' is thereby less typical of the novel: it is therefore at the same time the most obvious solution, when the narration remains on this side of convention (Proust's work...), and the most sophisticated, when the 'I' takes its place beyond convention and attempts to destroy it, by conferring on the narrative the spurious naturalness of taking the reader into its confidence (... Gide.) In the same way the use of the 'he' in a novel involves two opposed systems of ethics: since it represents an unquestioned convention, it attracts the most conformist and the least dissatisfied, as well as those others who have decided that, finally, this convention is necessary to the novelty of their work. In any case, it is the sign of an intelligible pact betwen society and the author; but it is also, for the latter, the most important means he has of building the world in the way that he chooses.
Me: Can you tell that Barthes, in the Fifties, was a dyed-in-the-wool modernist? Heh. I have some sympathy for that position although I came onto the scene with post-modernism in the 80s and loved the return of narrative into literature.
Mieke Bal, excerpts from Narratology, 2nd edition, 1997
Traditionally, narratives have been called, according to the 'voice' fo the narrator, 'first-person' or 'third-person novels, ... In principle, it does not make a difference to the status of the narration whether a narrrator refers to itself or not. As soon as there is language, there is a speaker who utters it; as soon as those linguistic utterances constitute a narrative text, there is a narrator, a narrating subject. From a grammatical point of view, this is always a 'first person'. In fact, the term 'third-person narrator' is absurd: a narrator is not a 'he' or a 'she'. At best the narrator can narrate about someone else, a 'he' or 'she'... Of course, this does not imply that the distinction between 'first-person' and third-person' narrratives is itself invalid. Just compare the following sentences:
a I shall be twenty-one tomorrow.
b Elizabeth will be twenty-one tomorrow.
If what I said above is valid, we may rewrite both sentences as:
(I say:) I shall be twenty-one tomorrow.
(I say:) Elizabeth will be twenty-one tomorrow.
... When in a text the narrator never refers explicity to itself as a character, we may speak of an external narrator. ... On the other hand, if the 'I' is to be identified with a character in the fabula [the story] it itself narrates, we speak of a character-bound narrator.
Me: Mieke Bal's external and character-bound narrator correspond to Gérard Genette's heterodiegetic and homodiegetic narrator. Genette is the model I used for my recent writing exercises in person. I like Bal a lot but she does privilege the reader at the expense of the writer, and that means that sometimes her analyses fall down when one attempts to turn them into fic-writing practice. I think theoretically, it is extremely helpful to realise that, no matter the person chosen, there is always that 'I' in the (I say:) part of narration. But on the other hand, there is the very practical matter of choosing what person to write in and the effect that has on the story, on the character and on the reader.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-17 09:56 pm (UTC)not that i have any thoughts on this whatsoever, because it's past 10 and i am stupid, but at least i can crib this in the future.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-18 10:43 pm (UTC)Actually, I am exhausted and my shoulder hurts. I typed 3 1/2 hours non-stop on my book today, a very theoretical section (Barthes and Jakobson: my head was smoking), and then I spent the same number of hours at night fixing up the Cadman fic and posting. I had forgotten what a complicated business the posting is! Breaking it up into LJ posting limits and converting italics and bolds and putting in the lj-cuts and linking to communities and inserting the 'continued in' urls and o my goodness, I am bushed. *falls into bush*
*possibly is bush*
David Bowie is crooning into my earphones. I need my bed! Haven't even had a chance to peek at Friends list; sometimes fic frenzy takes over.
When can we see each other, do you think?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-18 11:03 pm (UTC)wow. you. the writing. bloody good on you! i am TRES IMPRESSED. nearly four hours of critical writing, cor. i can only dimly recall what that's like -- although i realised today that i'm writing my novel somewhat as i used to write essays, with a whole messy long list of stuff i want to put in somewhere, and then slowly going through inserting it in more or less random places.
i think you deserve a hearty chalice of tea and a good lie down. me too -- i breached the critical 'actual plot develops' section of my novel today, huzzah. then i went careening around the countryside and made dinner and you know, that was enough.
flist (well mine) is jammed with pictures of elijah at cannes and the usual supernatural hysterics. just so's you know.
when what? i'm going back to london tomorrow for about two weeks, though i'll be away for half of it... are you coming down there at all? i'm here for another five weeks... then -- oh god! -- i leave!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-19 10:20 pm (UTC)Of course, you get a prize for adorability as well. And durability. And also rockability.
Well, I am très impressed with you writing your novel and even developing, *shock*, plot. And a 'chalice' of tea sounds very elegant!!
Yes, London, next two weeks. I can do:
Mon 22 May
Tues 23 May
Tues-Thurs 30 May - 1 June but poss.with children in tow (it's half-term holiday)
How about Tuesday 23 May? Let me know and I'll arrange kid-picking-up-from-school.
I could also do (*looks at calendar again*) Sun 28 May with t'eldest in tow (t'youngest is off to Holland with t'dad).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-24 11:42 pm (UTC)*waits*
oh, well, never mind.
rockability! i claim that nealogism as mine own. *cheers*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-25 12:50 pm (UTC)"But," squeaked Elijah, biting the nails of his free hand.
"No buts," drawled the older man as he dragged the younger man's trousers to the younger man's knees and ground hard against the younger man's stunning erection.
Stunning? Which is why Viggo was stunned.
Who knew that alien taser technology resided in the Boy Wonder's penis?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-26 01:14 pm (UTC)oh elijah. he will always be squeaky. with his shampoo-blue eyes and taser penis. *giggles*
bravo, lady. i think this is your oeuvre.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-26 05:24 pm (UTC)