Facets of transfictionality Cover Image

Wymiary transfikcjonalności
Facets of transfictionality

Author(s): Krzysztof M. Maj
Subject(s): Comparative Study of Literature, Evaluation research, Theory of Literature
Published by: Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: transfictionality; intertextuality; world-building; narrative metalepsis; theory of fiction; narratology; postclassical narratology;

Summary/Abstract: The article Facets of Transfictionality delivers a concise analysis of the newly-introduced narratological concept of “transfictionality” (put forward by Richard Saint-Gelais in the early 2000s). The author discusses the phenomenon as emerging on the border between the text-centred poetics of classical narratology and the world-centred poetics of postclassical narratology by use of Jan-Noël Thon’s and Marie-Laure Ryan’s project of “media-conscious narratology”. Defined as such, transfictionality allows the contemporary phenomena of retelling or cross-over to be described without the necessity of reproducing fan-made concepts and terms of such ilk, and instead rooting them in established theoretical constructs, such as narrative metalepsis. Consequently, the article illustrates the postclassical theory of narrative and the theory of literature with examples more common to media studies, with the aim being to emphasise Ryan’s thesis that transmediality is only a specific case of transfictionality, and that the latter is a far older and better acknowledged concept what is generally understood as the theory of fiction.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 30
  • Page Range: 147-166
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Polish