Introduction

Narratology is, etymologically, the science of narrative. The term was popularized, however, by such structuralist critics as Gerard Genette, Mieke Bal, Gerald Prince and others in the 1970s. A narrative is the semiotic representation of a series of events meaningfully connected in a temporal and causal way. Any semiotic construct, anything made of signs, can be said to be a text. Narratology in the strict sense of word is usually associated with structuralism. Linguistic theories studying the articulation of subjectivity in language are often applied to the analysis of narrative enunciation. Among recent developments of action theories, the most fruitful contributions are those which bridge the gap between literary narratology and cognitive psychology. Fredric Jameson incorporates and reinterprets structuralist narratology in order to study narrative as a 'socially symbolic act', as an imaginative response to class struggle.