![Page 1: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
From possible worlds to storyworlds:On the worldness of narrative
representation
Marie-Laure Ryan
![Page 2: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Actual world
Possible worlds model
Possible worlds
![Page 3: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Fictional recentering
Actual world system Fictional world system
![Page 4: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Principle of minimal departure
We imagine fictional storyworlds on the model of our experience of the actual world, except when the text contradicts this experience
![Page 5: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Basic properties of storyworlds
![Page 6: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
World as container World as network of relations
![Page 7: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
One text, several worlds, several stories
Narratives with forking paths: Run Lola Run, Butterfly Effect, French Lieutenant’s Woman
Cikwgh nyjgugbghgbbutbhbutg bv HZGfvytrk67wtutdu,ydl897pzy buybn98
![Page 8: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Cikwgh nyjgugbghgbbutbhbutg bv HZGfvytrk67wtutdu,ydl897pzy buybn98
SSS
SS
One text, one author, one world, many stories
Cloud Atlas, Babel
![Page 9: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Cikwgh nyjgugbghgbbutbhbutg bv HZGfvytrk67wtutdu,ydl897pzy buybn98
Cikwgh nyjgugbghgbbutbhbutg bv HZGfvytrk67wtutdu,ydl897pzy buybn98
Cikwgh nyjgugbghgbbutbhbutg bv HZGfvytrk67wtutdu,ydl897pzy buybn98
One world, many texts, many storiesMonomedial
S S
S SSS
Novels
![Page 10: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Distance from actual world
![Page 11: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Actual world
Verified in AW
Could happen in
AW
Could not happen in AW but logically consistent
Distance
![Page 12: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Actual world
Verified in AW
Could happen in
AW
Could not happen in AW but logically consistent
Logically inconsistent
Distance
![Page 13: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
A young old man, sitting on a wooden stone, was reading his newspaper which was folded in his pocket, by the light of a street light that had been turned off
Non-sense rhyme
![Page 14: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
(1) one and the same event is introduced in several conflicting versions ; (2) a place (Hong Kong) is and is not the setting of the novel; (3) the same events are ordered in reversed temporal sequence (A precedes B and B precedes A); and (4) one and the same world entity recurs in several modes of existence—as a literary fictional fact, as a theater performance, as a sculpture, as a painting
Contradictions in Alain Robbe-Grillet’s La Maison de Rendez-vous,
according to Lubomír Doležel
![Page 15: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Size of storyworld
![Page 16: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
![Page 17: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Micro-fiction
1. The king died, then the queen died of grief. (E.M. Forster’s example of plot)
2. For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.
![Page 18: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Criterion of worldness:
When a text creates a world, we imagine that there is more to this world than the text represents
![Page 19: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Transfictional operations
•Expansion•Modification•Transposition•Mash-up?
![Page 20: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
Mash-upPride and Prejudice and
Zombies
Seth Grahame-Smith
![Page 21: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Ontological completeness
![Page 22: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
Ontologically complete world: All propositions are either true or false
Ontologically incomplete world: contains logically indeterminate areas (neither true nor false)
![Page 23: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
Mimetic pole:Narrative representation
Anti-mimetic pole:Pure performance
The two poles of the theater according to Philip Auslander
![Page 24: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
PhèdreJean Racine
![Page 25: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
World of Phèdre
Space and events shown on stage
![Page 26: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
World of PhèdreNarrated events that take place between the beginning and the end of the pay
Space and events shown on stage
Return of TheseusDeath of Hippolyte
![Page 27: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
World of PhèdreNarrated events that take place between the beginning and the end of the pay
Space and events shown on stage
Spatio-temporal background
Return of TheseusDeath of Hippolyte
Geography of classical GreecePast of the characters as told by myths
![Page 28: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
Waiting for GodotSamuel Beckett
![Page 29: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
World of Waiting for Godot
Space and events shown on stage
![Page 30: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/30.jpg)
World of Waiting for GodotNarrated events that take place between the beginning and the end of the pay
Space and events shown on stage
![Page 31: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/31.jpg)
World of Waiting for GodotNarrated events that take place between the beginning and the end of the pay
Space and events shown on stage
Spatio-temporal background
A few isolated toponyms
![Page 32: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/32.jpg)
Textualism World approach
![Page 33: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/33.jpg)
Medium concerned Literature All media
Textualism World approach
![Page 34: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/34.jpg)
Medium concerned
Cultural domain
Literature
High culture
All media
All levels of culture
Textualism World approach
![Page 35: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/35.jpg)
Medium concerned
Cultural domain
Prototypical genre
Literature
High culture
Poetry
All media
All levels of culture
Narrative
Textualism World approach
![Page 36: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
Medium concerned
Cultural domain
Prototypical genre
Conception of meaning
Literature
High culture
Poetry
Infinite, endless deferral
All media
All levels of culture
Narrative
Blueprint for imagining a world
Textualism World approach
![Page 37: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/37.jpg)
Medium concerned
Cultural domain
Prototypical genre
Conception of meaning
What the text is about
Literature
High culture
Poetry
Infinite, endless deferral
Itself, language
All media
All levels of culture
Narrative
Blueprint for imagining a world
Characters, events, human problems, etc.
Textualism World approach
![Page 38: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/38.jpg)
Medium concerned
Cultural domain
Prototypical genre
Conception of meaning
What the text is about
“Textual world”
Literature
High culture
Poetry
Infinite, endless deferral
Itself, language
Sum of meanings unique to text
All media
All levels of culture
Narrative
Blueprint for imagining a world
Characters, events, human problems, etc.
Imagined as existing independently of text
Textualism World approach
![Page 39: Marie-Laure Ryan, On the Worldness of Narrative Representation](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022070513/5883348a1a28abaf6f8b5b3d/html5/thumbnails/39.jpg)
Medium concerned
Cultural domain
Prototypical genre
Conception of meaning
What the text is about
“Textual world”
Ideal user experience
Literature
High culture
Poetry
Infinite, endless deferral
Itself, language
Sum of meanings unique to text
Appreciating play of language
All media
All levels of culture
Narrative
Blueprint for imagining a world
Characters, events, human problems, etc.
Imagined as existing independently of text
Immersion
Textualism World approach