What is Narrative? Ricoeur, Bakhtin, and Process Approaches

Abstract

Centuries of indifference to narrative have, according to some insightful writers, culminated in a breakdown or crisis in narrative, characterised by a reduced significance of literary works and by a fragmented temporal organisation of people's lives. Yet in the twentieth century new academic interest in narrative emerged, particularly through the works of Paul Ricoeur, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Mikhail Bakhtin. Building on their works we may now posit narrative as a triad of the narrative work or artefact, the narrative mode of consciousness, and the relation between these two, characterised as communication. This re-conceptualisation reveals the ongoing, unfolding, temporal, and creative, or in other words, the processual nature of narrative. It also allows us to see that narrative is fundamental to other human processes, such as those of dialogue, intentionality, consciousness, knowledge, culture, community, reality construction, and, ultimately, personal identity. Narrative can now be regarded as primordial to all human affairs and the source of what MacIntyre terms 'the unity of a life'.

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