Introduction. Narratological Theory on Space

This book follows the narratological theories on time of Genette and Bal, where appropriate, eclectically supplemented with concepts from other theoreticians. When discussing time in a narrative text, it may be instructive to start by considering just how much time awareness there is within that text: does the narrator provide us with a precise schedule, marking the years, months, days, and hours, or is the chronology fairly vague? In order to describe in more detail the many forms of temporal relationships between narrative and the events recounted, we must turn to one of the cornerstones of narratology. The threefold distinction fabula story text makes possible a precise analysis of the various temporal procedures which narrators have at their disposal: they can change the order of events, they can spend more or less time on recounting events, and they can recount events only once or more often. Keywords: analepses ; Bal; fabula ; Genette; narratological theory; prolepses ; rhythm