Philologisches Seminar

Factual Narration

The fact that narratology is more vivid than ever is not least due to the fact that narratology has developed across epochs and disciplines into an overarching theory of knowledge and communication. Within this development, 'factual' texts are increasingly coming into focus in addition to works of fiction. Perhaps the most prominent example is offered by Hayden White's (1973, 1986) provocative thesis that every work of historiography is inevitably also a narrative ("Klio, too, writes poetry").

Recently, other fields of investigation have shifted into focus, among them law and philosophy, medicine and natural sciences, journalism and politics (Fludernik/Falkenhayner/Steiner 2015). Such “Wirklichkeitserzählungen" (Klein/Martínez 2009) shape our everyday lives and, at the same time, have a historical dimension that extends into antiquity, whereby they can make an important contribution to the project of an overarching diachronic narratology (Fludernik 2009, 110–118; Tilg/Contzen 2019). The works of Herodotus and Livy, but also of Caesar and Suetonius, are 'narrative' to a high degree, so that they can be analyzed with the standard toolbox of narratology (de Jong 2014, 167–195). Other research areas extend to a variety of text types that often stand on the border between fact and fiction as is the case, for example, with Pliny's letter collections (see also Small Forms). Sometimes there are also cases of hybridization between fictional and factual narrative techniques, such as Sueton's Vitae Caesarum (Kirstein 2020) or the Pangeyrici Latini (Cordes 2020).

Bibliography (selected)

On Factual Narration:

  • Fludernik, Monika/Falkenhayner, Nicole/Steiner, Julia (eds.) (2015), Faktuales und fiktionales Erzählen. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, Würzburg: Ergon.

  • Jaeger, Stephan (2002), Erzähltheorie und Geschichtswissenschaft, in: Ansgar Nünning/Vera Nünning (eds.), Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 237–263.

  • Jong, Irene J. F. de (2014), Narratology and Classics. A Practical Guide, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 167–195.

  • Klein, Christian/Martínez, Matías (eds.) (2009), Wirklichkeitserzählungen. Felder und Funktionen nicht-literarischen Erzählens, Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler.

Factual Narration and Ancient Texts:
  • Contzen, Eva von/Tilg, Stefan (eds.) (2019), Handbuch historische Narratologie, Berlin, Heidelberg: Metzler.
  • Cordes, Lisa (2020), Wenn Fiktionen Fakten schaffen. Faktuales und fiktionales Erzählen in den späten Panegyrici Latini, in: D. Breitenwischer/H. Häger/J. Menninger (eds.), Faktuales und fiktionales Erzählen II. Geschichte - Medien - Praktiken, Würzburg: Ergon, 31–55.
  • Fludernik, Monika (2009), An Introduction to Narratology, London: Routledge.
  • Gibson, Roy/Morello, Ruth (eds.) (2012), Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger. An Introduction, Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge University Press.
  • Kirstein, Robert (2020), Narratologie und Biographie. Suetons Vita Augusti, in: Scienze dell’Antichitá 26 (2), 115–126.
  • Walton, Kendall (2004), Fiction and Nonfiction, in: John, E./McIver Lopes, D. (eds.), Philosophy and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 136–143.

  • White, Hayden (1973), Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

  • White, Hayden (1986), Auch Klio dichtet oder die Fiktion des Faktischen. Studien zur Tropologie des historischen Diskurses, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

In Preparation:

  • Kirstein, Robert/Schmidt-Hofner, Sebastian (eds.) (i.V.), Colloquium Rauricum XVIII: Recht als Erzählung. Narratologie und Recht von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart – Narratology and Law from Antiquity to the Present Age, Basel: Schwabe & Co.

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