Forms and functions of narration and focalization in some selected poems of Lord Byron [Elektronische Ressource] : a narratological analysis / vorgelegt von Pepertua Kininla Lola Nkamanyang

Nkamanyang, Perpetua

Informations

• Publié par: justus-liebig-universitat_giessen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 147
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

FORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF
NARRATION AND FOCALIZATION IN SOME SELECTED POEMS OF LORD BYRON:
A NARRATOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Inaugural-Dissertation
zur
Erlangung des Doktorgrades
der Philosophie des Fachbereiches 05
der Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
vorgelegt von
Pepertua Kininla Lola Nkamanyang
aus Douala (Kamerun)
2008
Dekanin: Prof. Dr. Monika Wingender
1. Berichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Ansgar Nünning (University of Giessen, Germany)
2. Berichterstatter: Prof. Olayinka M. Njikam Savage (University of Douala, Cameroon)
Tag der Disputation: 27. März 2008


FORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF
NARRATION AND FOCALIZATION IN SOME SELECTED POEMS OF
LORD BYRON: A NARRATOLOGICAL ANALYSIS


I. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................ 1

II. TOWARDS AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF A TRANSGENERIC
NARRATOLOGICAL APPROACH TO POETRY: NARRATORIAL VOICE,
CONSCIOUSNESS REPRESENTATION CATEGORIES, PERSPECTIVE STRUCTURE
AND FOCALIZATION AS CATEGORIES OF A TRANSGENERIC NARRATIVE
THEORY OF POETRY........................................................................................................... 37
1. Beyond Transgeneric Narratology................................................................................................. 43
1.1 Narrative Mediation and Transgeneric Narratology: From the Narratologically Oriented Analysis of
Poetic Texts to an Integrated Theory of Transgeneric Narratological Reconceptualization of Narrators and
Focalizers: An Overview and Critique of Approaches. ............................................................................... 43
1.2 Synthesizing Approaches to Narrative Mediation: Voice, Perceptual Forms, Perspective Structure,
Tense Forms, Metanarrative Elements and Techniques for the Representation of Mental Processes as
Categories of a Transgeneric Narratological Conception of Narrators and Focalizers................................ 55
2. Voice, Focalization and Transgeneric Narratology...................................................................... 62
2.1 Narratorial Voice and Transgeneric Narratology ................................................................................... 62
2.2 Transgeneric Narratology and Mediation: Strategies of Discrimination................................................ 73
2.3 Strategies of Interpretation and Analysis in the Authorial Narrative Situation...................................... 92
2.4 Strategies of Reference and Analysis in First-Person Homodiegetic Narrative Texts ......................... 101
2.5 The Figural Narrative Situation: Strategies for Reading, Interpretation and Analysis 107
2.6 Tense, Narratorial Voice and Focalization........................................................................................... 117
2.7 Tense and Narrational Voice: Tense as Participant Tracking Phenomenon......................................... 120
3. Focalization and Transgeneric Narratology: Strategies of Reference and Analysis............... 123




III. AN ANALYSIS OF THE USES OF CERTAIN CATEGORIES OF NARRATORS IN
BYRON’S NARRATIVE VERSE......................................................................................... 132
1. The Uses of Authorial Narration in Poetry Analysis.................................................................. 139
2. An Analysis of the Uses of First-Person Homodiegetic Narration in the Poetry of Lord Byron
............................................................................................................................................................. 175
3. An Analysis of the Uses of the Figural Mode in Poetry ............................................................. 230

IV. HOW FOCALIZATION IS USED IN BYRON’S POETRY........................................ 262

V. CONCLUSION: FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTIC TENDENCIES OF THE
SYNTHESIS OF APPROACHES TO MEDIATION IN BYRON’S NARRATIVE
VERSE………………………………………………………………………………………300

WORKS CITED..................................................................................................................... 308
1. Primary Literature........................................................................................................................ 308
2. Secondary Literature .................................................................................................................... 309
3. Selected Bibliography.................................................................................................................... 316
PREFACE

Narration and focalization constitute fundamental areas of interest in the transgeneric
narrative theory of poetry criticism, and play the central role of allowing for a staging of the
extent to which narratology is productive in theoretical conceptions and analyses of mediation
in Byron’s poetry, and the secondary one of providing narrative forms for investigating the
intersections of transgeneric narrative theory and culture. This is the main goal of my study.
Although current debate in transgeneric narrative theory of poetry has shown that deploying a
narrative approach to mediation in poetic discussions is apt to illuminate theoretical and
analytical functions of narratology in an apparently disparate discipline like poetry, certain
categories of narratorial voice, metanarative clues, perspective structure, narrative strategies
for the representation of consciousness, and catagories of focalization have either received
partial treatment or been completely ignored. The transgeneric narrative theory of poetry has
conceptualized the mediacy of narrative transmission in terms of the categories of the
biographical author, the textual subject, the speaker or narrator, the protagonist, and types of
perspectives (retrospective homodiegetic and simultaneous homodiegetic narration), hence
revealing exclusive interest in agents and levels of mediacy that are structuralist oriented, and
common to lyric texts. Consequently, narrative theory of poetry has neglected the further
levels of mediacy that are structural and context-sensitive such as authorial narration, the
reflector modes, first-person forms (narrating objects, communal voice), levels of perspective,
and the internal and external levels of focalization. In its theoretical conception of mediation,
transgeneric narratology has disregarded questions such as what narrative structures are
suitable for locating context-specific issues of ideology and literary values of a given literary
period in a text. Considering the importance of the above categories and issues both for a
theoretical reconceptualization of mediation, and to an extent, for investigating the
intersections of narratological approaches to mediation and culture, the methodology of this
study consists in synthesizing representations of mediacy drawn from the insights of classical
and post classical narrative theory and cultural narratology. In other words, combining
concepts from structuralist narratology and cultural narratology (aiming to show that narrative
is reproduced from cultures and contributes to the understanding of the very cultures from
which it emanates) would constitute cornerstones for a transgeneric narratology which is still
in the process of development.
By evolving a broadly synthesized and dynamic transgeneric narrative theory of
mediacy for poetry criticism, this study aims at bridging both the theoretical and analytical
gaps created by transgeneric narrative theory of poetry and extant literature on Byron’s poetry
deploying narratology respectively. The suitability of the innovative approach to mediation is
demonstrated in the exemplary analysis of narrative poems written by Byron in the period
1788-1824. The analysis of these poems reveals that Byron’s poetry provides narrative
phenomena ranging from voice, narrating objects, mental and extra-mental aspects,
consciousness representation strategies, perspectives, and forms of perceiving that may
encourage a reading of a poetic text as narration, focalization, or representation of an ideology
or context; and also facilitate an understanding of ways narratology is linked to cultural
narratology. By assimilating issues of culture or context into narratology, transgeneric
narratology is not only widened; it provides productive interpretive and analytical tools which
enable the study to address peculiar narrative strategies of different kinds of narrative (prose)
fiction that are constructed in Byron’s narrative verse, and the effects allowed. While the
above categories of mediation may allow for an understanding of the ways in which Byron’s
poetry provides phenomena for narrative staging of narration and focalization, they also
constitute specific strategies for a forging of a scope of stimulating functions of narrative in
poetry that deals with story telling, cultures, contexts and ideologies. In sum, the analysis
enhances a further understanding of Byron’s poetry.

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study has been the most difficult of all intellectual battles I have had to fight (a fight in
which I have learned the lesson that quitters never win the race