THE COMPLEXITIES OF THE NARRATOR PERSONA IN HISTORIOGRAPHY – THE CASE OF SALLUST’S BELLUM CATILINAE
THE COMPLEXITIES OF THE NARRATOR PERSONA IN HISTORIOGRAPHY – THE CASE OF SALLUST’S BELLUM CATILINAE
Author(s): Gregor PobežinSubject(s): Studies of Literature
Published by: Centrum Interdyscyplinarnych Badań Relacji między Kulturą Oralną i Piśmienniczą, Uniwersytet Wrocławski
Keywords: narratology; narrator; narratee; narrative text; story; fabula; historiography; Thucydides; Sallust
Summary/Abstract: This paper explores the complex persona of the narrator in historiographic texts. It would seem that in historiography, the narrator should be a rather straightforward notion, since it is generally assumed that historiographic texts ideally represent something that actually happened in the past. A historiographic narrator should be, according to the prevailing doctrines, a reliable and coherent intratextual function that must always stay outside the reported story, which bestows on him/her a cloak of omniscience. Yet in some of the most important historical works, the narrator proves to be less than a stable and reliable instance.
Journal: Quaestiones Oralitatis
- Issue Year: V/2020
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 51-78
- Page Count: 28
- Language: English