A General Narratology

This book attempts to provide a basic theory for all narratives, in order to shake narratology off its age-long novel-centrism. There are storytellings everywhere in human culture, from primitive to modern times. The scholarship of narratology has been developed for centuries, and this includes the “emancipatory” Post-Classical Narratology of recent decades.This book gives a classification of all narratives including performative narratives (such as theater, visual broadcasting, ceremony, competition), semi-performative narratives (such as cinema), and mental narratives (such as dream and hallucination), among which conative narratives, such as advertisement, promise and divination, are a unique kind. This book provides and discusses the criteria that can make distinctions clear and unconfusing. Each kind of narrative is given a detailed discussion on its factual and fictional variations.