ABSTRACT
It is in the nature of narratology to seek what is most universal, conventional, and general about narratives, and attempt to describe and analyse these features as effectively as possible. Yet, the relationship between what is general and what is unique, variable, or contra-standard in storytelling has also been one of the defining tensions throughout the history of this field. Thus, the impetus towards the generalisable has been regularly counterbalanced by paying attention to the ways in which individual artists and works of art explore, question, and modify common practices and invent new forms of storytelling. When narratology meets the unexpected, and the singular, the theory has to be adjusted—if not right away, then in time. This process of adjusting, then, has become an important outcome of the research.
