Models of Narrative

T w o brief prose pieces by Heinrich von Kleist provide contrast ing, complementary models of the processes of reading and narrating a text . Through the images they present and the narrative act iv i ty they exemplify, Uber das Marionettentheater and Unwahrscheinliche Wahrhaftigkeiten offer clues w e can organise into a systematic, if surprising, account of narrative funct ions. Both Kleist's texts are stories about the tell ing of stories. In each text , three stories or facts are recounted, and the listeners' responses fo rm part of a larger narrative. Both texts, then , are narratives about the effects of narrat ion, and both concern the status of texts. In Uber das Marionettentheater, the topic under discussion is the quali ty of beauty or grace. The narrator and a certain 'Herr C collaborate in tell ing three stories about the condit ions of gracefulness, Anmut or Grazie. This is the quality of the aesthetic object, and more part icularly, of the aesthetic object insofar as it resembles a self, or of the self insofar as it resembles a work of art. Uber das Marionettentheater presents us w i th models of the text in its aesthetic func t ion , its power to give pleasure th rough its formal properties. Unwahrscheinliche Wahrhaftigkeiten presents the text in its referential and epistemological func t ion , its power to convey t ru th . Whi le Uber das Marionettentheater concerns wha t elicits our positive aesthetic judgment , w h a t pleases us, Unwahrscheinliche Wahrhaftigkeiten concerns wha t elicits our conv ic t ion, our positive judgment as to its t ru th . Both wr i t ings quest ion the effect of the product ion of f igures, or to put it another way , the effectiveness of rhetoric. One such effect is pleasure, wh ich w e ascribe to beauty, and another is persuasion, wh ich

Art · Literature · Narrative · Computer Science · German Literature and Culture Studies · Linguistic research and analysis · Narrative Theory and Analysis