Hypodiegetic narrative
In narratology, a hypodiegetic narrative is a narrative embedded in another narrative. The account of the monster in the novel Frankenstein is an example.[1] The term was coined by Mieke Bal in 1977 and narratologists often prefer it over the name metadiegetic narrative that was coined by Gérard Genette in 1980.[2][1][3][4]
Another name sometimes used is pseudo-diegetic narrative, although this more strictly is when the hypodiegetic status is forgotten and the narrative begins to function as a simply diegetic one.[1][4]
In Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH the life story of Nicodemus that he tells Mrs Frisby is such a narrative.[5]
When narrative levels are confused or entangled, this is metalepsis.[5]
Bal explained the terminological difference thus:
I continue to be unhappy with Genette's hierarchical inversion. I think that to indicate dependence, we have to replace higher with its opposite. To save the prefix "meta-"[a] for a more appropriate use, I want to proppose, provisionally and for lack of anything better, that we speak of "hypo-"[b]: "hypo-narrative", "hypo-diegetic".[6]
She noted that Robert Scholes in 1971 had used "metanarrative" to mean an exterior story wrapped around an interior story, and this required a name for the opposite framing.[7]
Footnotes
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c McQuillan 2000, p. 320.
- ^ Herman, Jahn & Ryan 2010, p. 229.
- ^ Prince 2003, p. 1939, hypodiegetic narrative.
- ^ a b Prince 2003, p. 1948, metadiegetic narrative.
- ^ a b Herman 2018, p. 338, hypodiegetic narrative.
- ^ Bal 2006, p. 16.
- ^ Bal 2006, p. 37.
Bibliography
[edit]- Herman, David; Jahn, Manfred; Ryan, Marie-Laure, eds. (2010). "hypodiegetic narrative". Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Routledge. ISBN 9781134458400.
- McQuillan, Martin, ed. (2000). "Hypodiegetic narrative". The Narrative Reader. Psychology Press. ISBN 9780415205337.
- Herman, David (2018). "Glossary". Narratology Beyond the Human: Storytelling and Animal Life. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190850401.
- Prince, Gerald (2003). A Dictionary of Narratology. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803287761.
- Bal, Mieke (2006). "Narration and Focalization". A Mieke Bal Reader. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226035857.
Further reading
[edit]- Pier, John (2014). "Narrative levels". In Hühn, Peter; Meister, Jan Christoph; Pier, John; Schmid, Wolf (eds.). Handbook of Narratology. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Walter de Gruyter. pp. 554ff. ISBN 9783110316469.