NARRATOLOGY

in literary theory, the study of narrative structure. Like structuralism, from which it derived, narratology is based on the idea of a common literary language, or a universal pattern of codes that operates within the text of a work. The development of this body of theory, and its corresponding terminology, accelerated in the mid-20th century. The foundations of narratology were laid in such books as Vladimir Propp's Morfologiya skazki (1928; Morphology of the Folk Tale), which created a model for folktales based on seven spheres of action and 31 functions of narrative; Claude Lvi-Strauss's Anthropologie structurale (1958; Structural Anthropology), which outlined a grammar of mythology; A.J. Greimas's Smantique structurale (1966; Structural Semantics), which proposed a system of six structural units called actants; and Tzvetan Todorov's Grammaire du Dcamron (1969; The Grammar of the Decameron), which introduced the term narratologie. In Figures III (1972; partial translation, Narrative Discourse) and Nouveau Discours de rcit (1983; Narrative Discourse Revisited), Grard Genette codified a system of analysis that examined both the actual narration and the act of narrating as they existed apart from the story or the content. Other influential theorists in narratology were Roland Barthes, Claude Bremond, and Northrop Frye.