Narrative – An excavation by Jesyca Rodenberg
Narrative has a fascinating history. From the Latin “narrare”, it moved to the Middle French in 1450. Its usage dropped dramatically in the mid-1600’s when it developed a “Scot stigma” 1 and is actually the root/inspiration for story, history, and romance of all things. A further branch of interest is that a part of Latin definition included the verb, “to recount”, which inspired the Old English definition of narrative “to account,” which is how it came to be said that to share a narrative is to give an account of something, or why we believe or disbelieve a story based on another individual’s account. An interesting link that supports the theory of narrative as persuasion.
My mistake, however, was assuming that narrative preceded narration. Not that I obsessed with making the distinctions between nouns and verbs, but the verb narrate, to make a narration, has a history much more complex and traceable back to Proto-Indo-European roots. “Narrare” comes from PIE bases that mean “to know” and “to make acquainted with…” To share what you know was identified by language BEFORE the concept of what we were sharing was.
Now, the idea that our discipline is based around an oral tradition is nothing new. But to find a new way of supporting and defending the continuation of that tradition through language is an exciting thing. Especially if you have spent a third of your life work in an audio-based field and are now in the middle of an existential crisis because your academic career is going to be judged on a piece of written work.
So what’s the application? I have recently stumbled across the Yiddish Radio Project. Among its many treasures from a lost radio empire are recordings of a radio-show called “
If the root of narrative is in the act, not the item, we as a discipline must defend the act and keep it alive. 2
“narration” Online Etymology Dictionary 04 Apr. 2008
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=narration
NPR’s Yiddish Radio Project at www.yiddishradioproject.org
- What or why the stigma was is unknown to this author at this time.
- It would be very nice to tie this piece back to a defense of oral thesis, but not in 400 words.
4 comments:
Reaction to Narrative:
Within the realm of narrative being practiced today in our public speaking class, stories are usually being passed on from one student to another. Some significant, some retelling their spring break bouts, yet none of them moving and worth repeating. Moving as defined as an alterting moment.
When narratives and the oral tradition existed, how did one choose what story was passed on. How many stories of life, love lost, lessons, been skimmed over, left behind, and lost in the oral tradition. They would still be around if written down. Have we become a soceity obsessed with textual letters, or can we move beyond text, and treat oral tradition to the same degree as the written one. Instead of an email, a phone call, instead of a facebook post, a face to face meeting?
Jesyca,
I completely agree with you about the impossibility of reducing narration to a simple written text. I too find it problematic to reduce any one story to a written text, as such an attempt would ignore all the different variations of the story as it was passed down through time. George Washington really did tell a lie before chopping down that cherry tree, but the actuality of that story has become subservient to the larger than life character such a tale has taken. Extrapolating the story from its written text is how narratives gain power. The reader or listener has to see themselves as part of the story; visualize their involvement with and connection to the characters. Textual revisions of narratives are useful for keeping the story going, but never enough on their own to give them meaning. Its the rhetoric of narration that gives the narrative its power to settle in our mind for as long as time will permit.
With the development of technology do you see the narrative turning away from being something written down and returning to something being told, or even some form of hybrid between writing and speaking? For example people are starting to mix their blogs, facebook, myspace, etc. with writing and video. Shall we soon be seeing a return to the idea of a narrative?
After reading Mike's post I wonder if perhaps the internet is a gateway back to the narrative world. IT is said that all of life swings back and forth on a pendulum, never staying in one extreme forever. Perhaps in reading blogs of travels and seeing pictures of grandkids on the internet people will be able to realize what they are missing out. Seeing pictures of a loved one or tales of far away travels invites the reader to take a step towards personal contact. The internet has always been seen as a method of change and knowledge, but maybe with the internet we will able to move back towards being more human.
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