An Essay on Narrative, Reality, and Imagination

Abstract

ABSTRACTNarrative is a verbal account, a story of related events which can be factual, fictional or both. Life experience and imagination are as essential to narrative as narrative is to mankind. The phylogenic perspective of literature suggests an inborn capacity for empathy, intelligence and inventiveness, whereas the ontological example is variable. Western knowledge, politics and ethics have evolved from their narrative of Greek myth, epic and drama, the few medieval writers, singularly by the Elizabethan theater, importantly the Arthurian legend and romance stories, English and Russian novels, and uniquely the American short story. This heritage progressively demarcated such life themes as the hero, maiden and adversary; love, hate and indifference; loyalty, deception and betrayal; desire, achievement and loss. These characterizations of self and other remain relevant to the contemporary novel, cinema/TV, and theater, as well as the news, commentary, and real life. Conversely, postmodern assumptions challenge that individual subjectivity determines what is real, valid or authentic, consequently the relativism of traditional, institutional and historical precedents of the truth. Further, the computer, gaming, smart device, and artificial intelligence have changed the content and function of customary narrative. Nonetheless, narrative — real and imagined, ancient and new — retains the meaning of a story about connected events which variously transcends the boundaries of difference.