User:DionysosProteus/Narrative

NARRATIVE

In Book III of his Republic (c.373BCE), the ancient Greek philosopher Plato examines the 'style' of 'poetry' (the term includes comedy, tragedy, epic and lyric poetry): All types narrate events, he argues, but by differing means. He distinguishes between narration or report ('diegesis') and imitation or representation ('mimesis'). Tragedy and comedy, he goes on to explain, are wholly imitative types; the dithyramb is wholly narrative; and their combination is found in epic poetry. When reporting or narrating, "the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to suppose that he is any one else"; when imitating, the poet produces an "assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or gesture". In dramatic texts, the poet never speaks directly; in narrative texts, the poet speaks as his or herself.


 * Elam, Keir. 1980. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New Accents Ser. London and New York: Methuen. ISBN: 0416720609.
 * Pfister, Manfred. 1977. The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Trans. John Halliday. European Studies in English Literature Ser. Cambridige: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 052142383X.
 * Plato. c.373BCE. Republic. Retried from Project Gutenberg on 2nd September, 2007.