Historical Phases of Narrative Strategies

Abstract

Strategic differences in any area of activity are generated by differences in initial conditions, as well as by differences in potential goals. The purpose of narration relates to the communicative event that is an interaction between consciousness, and this, too, can be strategically different. When it comes to the initial conditions of narration, the determinative factor is the narrative picture of the world “which provides the scale for determining what constitutes and event” (Lotman). Such pictures are phasic in their genesis, and each takes shape in narrative practices at a certain level in the development of human consciousness. They can later be actualised in historically cultural context. This paper will successively consider the precedent, imperative, adventurous and probabilistic pictures of the world, seeking to clarify the specifics of the narrative points of view which they manifest.