Narrative Form and Negotiation in Cultural Narratology

Abstract

This article offers an overview of discussions within cultural narratology. One of the basi assumptions of this strand of contemporary narratology is that form is closely bound up with ideology, since it guides – without determining completely – narrative’s engagement with ideas and issues circulating in society. Building on Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck’s notion of narrative negotiation, I show how some of the basic forms of narrative (its temporal-causal organization, spatiality, and mediation through voice and focalization) carry important ideological ramifications. I exemplify this discussion by referring to a broad range of contemporary narratives (fictional and nonfictional) dealing with two defining crises of the present: migration and climate change.