Fictional Narrative, Factual Narrative

Abstract

If words have meaning (or even multiple meanings), then narratology-whether in its formal aspect, as the study of narrative discourse, or its thematic aspect, as the analysis of the sequences of events and actions related by this discourse-ought by rights to concern itself with stories of all kinds, fictional and otherwise. It is evident, however, that the two branches of narratology have until now devoted their attention almost exclusively to the behavior and objects of fictional narrative alone.' And this has not been a simple empirical choice, implying no prejudice toward whatever might, for the time being, have been explicitly excluded from consideration; rather it has involved the implicit privileging of fictional narrative, which has been hypostatized as narrative par excellence, or as the model for all narratives whatsoever. The few researchers-Paul Ricoeur, Hayden White, or Paul Veyne, for instance-who have shown any interest in the figures or intrigues of historical narrative, have done so from the perspective of some other discipline: philosophy of temporality, rhetoric, episte-