Narratology and Intermediality — Testing Elleström’s concept of “Transmedial Narration”
Narratology and Intermediality — Testing Elleström’s concept of “Transmedial Narration”

Summary/Abstract: This article makes an overview of the relation between narratology and intermediality as exemplified by Swedish intermediality scholar Lars Elleström’s approach. In a book from 2019, entitled Transmedial Narration. Narratives and Stories in Different Media, Elleström presents his approach to narratologyand elaborates the concept of “transmedial narration” on the basis of his earlier theoretical model of intermedial relations. The search for a concept of narration that should be as simple and flexible as possible, in order for it to be applied to as many media types as possible, leads Elleström to the conclusion that the concepts stemming from classical narratology are not suitable in a transmedial context, since they are too media specific. Even if I support Elleström’s effort to open up narration to other media types, I find that French scholar Gérard Genette’s detailed narratological model from 1972 can be used as the basic tool when analyzing works form other media than literature. This hypothesis is tested in the article in a number of media types which are increasingly different from literature.

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