Postclassical Narratology: Approaches and Analyses

6 Introduction
classical narratologies. 6 He contrasts (1) classical text-centeredness with postclassical
context orientation and (2) the treatment of narrative as a langue
with the pragmatic focus on the parole of individual (use of) narratives in
postclassical approaches. 7 As in the syntax vs. pragmatics dichotomy, Nünning
also (3) sees classical narratology as a closed system and postclassical
narratologies as emphasizing the dynamics of narration. He moreover
(4) subsumes the shift from the functional analysis of features to a readeroriented
focus on strategies and applications in the dichotomy and (5) contrasts
classical bottom-up analysis with postclassical top-down inferencing.
Nünning’s table next opposes (6) “(reductive) binarism” with a “preference
for holistic cultural interpretation” and (7) structuralist taxonomy with thematically
and ideologically directed analysis. As a consequence, (8) where
classical narratology remained shy of moral grounding, postclassical narratologies
open themselves to moral issues, analogously causing (10) a shift
from descriptive to interpretative and evaluative paradigms. Thus, (9) classical
narratology’s aim to provide a “poetics of fiction” (in alignment with the
semiological thrust of narratology) is superseded by “putting the analytical
toolbox to interpretative use.” Nünning also sees the rise of diachronic or
historical narratology as a postclassical phenomenon (11). His summary in
the diagram of the dichotomy classical vs. postclassical consists in the contrasts
of (12) universalism vs. particularism (which is equivalent to contextualism),
and (13) the opposition between a relatively unified discipline vs.
“an interdisciplinary project consisting of heterogeneous approaches” (all
243–4). Paradoxically, Nünning’s rhetorical strategy of establishing open,
non-taxonomic postclassical narratologies actually involves the dualism of a
before and after and therefore relies on a structural binarism of the very kind
that it is trying to transcend.
Generally speaking, then, postclassical narratologies along the lines
sketched by Nünning seem to move toward a grand contextual, historical,
pragmatic and reader-oriented effort. Such integration and synthesis allows
researchers to recontextualize the classical paradigm and to enrich narrative
theory with ideas developed after its structuralist phase. While classical narratology
was a relatively unified discipline or field, postclassical narratologies
are part of a large transdisciplinary project that consists of various heterogeneous
approaches (see also Herman 2007).
6. The numbering in what follows corresponds to Nünning’s order in the diagram.
7. To put this slightly differently, the chief concern of structuralist narratologists was
“with transtextual semiotic principles according to which basic structural units (characters,
states, events, etc.) are combined, permuted, and transformed to yield specific narrative texts”
(D. Herman 2005: 19–20).