[LIT index]  [^^Terms]  [^^TIME LINE]
1. Story Telling
The Primitive Story

1. Story-Telling:  Who, what, when, where, how?
   What is a story?
      The Primitive Story (story AS just story; Todorov's paper)
   A way of seeing, articulating, constructiong a world?
   A way of connecting realities?
   Tell a Story; your story?

[Back to Story Lab "stuff] 


On this page:  {Intro}
               {Todorov's essay on Prim Story}
               {}




               
 


  

The Text

 Todorov, Tzvetan (1967). The Poetics of Prose. 
          (LCCN PN'218'T613'1967) (NO ISBN)
          (Cornell Universtiy Press, 1967,Ithaca, NY, Terra).

Note a usefull "toc" is contained in note 1:  {down here}
 
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4: Primimitive Narrative

Now and then critics invoke a narrative that is simple, healty,
and natural - a primitive narrative untainted by the vices of 
modern versions. Present-day novelists are said to have strayed
from the good old ways and no longer follow the rules, for 
reasons not yet entirely agreed up-on: innatve perversity on 
their part, or a futile pursuit of originality, or a blind
submission to fashion?

One wonders about the real narraitves which have permitted such
an induction. In any case, it is instructive from from this
perspective to re-read the Odyssey, that first narrative
which should, a priori, correspond best to the image of primitive
narrative. Few contemporary works reveal such an accumulation of
"pervesities", so many methods and devices which make this work
anything and everything but a simple narrative.

The image of primitive narrative is not a fictive one, perfabricated
for the needs of an argument. It is as implicit in certain judgements
on contemporary literature as incertain scholarly remarks on works of
the past. Adoptng a postion bsed on an esthetic [sic] proper to 
primitive narrative, commentators on early narrative declare one or
another of its parts alien to the body of the work; and worse, still,
they beleive themselves to be refering to no particular eshetic. Yet
is preceisesly the case of the Odyssey, where we have no
historical certaintty that this

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very esthetic determines scholarly decision as to "insertions" and 
"interpolations". 

It would be tiresome to list all [Note 1] the laws of this esthetic.
But we can review the main ones:


 
The Law of Versimilitude
All of a character's words and actions must agree with a psychological
verisimilitude -- as if at all periods the same combinations of qualities 
had been judged to possess the same verisimiltude. For example, we are
told: "Such and such a passage has been regarded as an interporlation
since Antiquity because they words seem to contradict the portrait of
Nausicaa [sic] drawn elsewhere by the poet." [Note 2].

 
The Law of Sytlistic Unity
The low and the sublime can-not mix. Hence we are told that a certain
"un-seemly" passage must naturally be regarded as an interpolation.
[Note 3].


 
The Law of the Priority of the Serious
Any comic version of a narrative is subsequent in time to its serious 
version; a corollary is the temporary priority of the good to the bad 
-- the version now-a-days considered best is the earliest. "This entrance
of Telemachus into Menelaus' house-hold is an imitation of Odysseus'
entrance into that of Alcinous, which would indicate that the 
"Wanderings of Telemachus" were composed after the 
"Alcinous Narratives". [Note 4].





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NOTES (this section only)

 
[1] I *really* wish that he had. Of course to Todorov, such a list would
    prob seem obvious. As best i can give, here are some of my own additions
(i've used a "*") to indicate those in his list:


  GET LIST; PUT LIST; END RUN; /* end of pl1 program */


  *{Priority of the Serious} [Note 4]
  *{Stylistic Unity}  [Note 3]


  *{Stylistic Unity}  [Note 3]
  *{Verisimilitude}  [Note 2]


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[2] The Law of Verisimilitude (notes),


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[3] The Law of Sylitic Unity (notes).


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[4] The Law of the Priority of the Serious (notes).


At first glance, i'd hae to admit that this looks rather treu. 
However, consider the problem of "style" as such (or in art terms
"art movements/periods/styles" etc). For example, once the style
of the novel (eg, Gustav Flaubert's "Madam Bovary") as thesis
substance which gives riese to its anti-thesis the mock or satire
(eg, Dennis Diderot's "Jacques the Servant and his Master"). 

On the other hand, once (in "old age" of the genre) a style is 
mostly accepted and known, the mock and satire can be used not 
as *comedy* per se, but as a new branch-lit of the original trunk.
This of course is most clear in the use of collage, mixtures, and
of any such assemblages. Thus, we might consider the stage musical
as a banch-lit of the original opera and of course a very possible 
cndidate for an intermediary being the lite operetta.

Note that the "lite" style can be used to bridge complex and/or 
tedious subjects. Thus, (for example, i humbly submit) my own
"Rituals of Riding the Bus" was intended (admittedly a bit
tongue-in-cheek) but as a *co-erced* reading piece to force the
reader to re-examine the plebian (socially and commonly so) task
of "riding the bus". The clearest example of this occurs in most
anthropologist's works for the popular press. For example in one
of Marvin Harris' books (or it might well be Jared Diamone) he 
returns from a stay with "primitive" peoples and saw a "Marlborro"
cigarette ad and saw the "rough tough cowboy" image as a sign to
NOT smoke since the cowboy depends so much upon his well being and
strength. Thus the cultural markers gazed by Harris/Diamon thru
green-tinted glasses rendered the *intended* text not only useless
but actually reversed. 

As i've pointed out (ano nothing new here from me on that which i
have learned) that without a common set of markers and a translating
text between the two cultures, ONLY the formal elements of a work
can be carried forward. Hence, we are struck down onto the un-glittering
pavement of CRAFT and not ART or even artifact, cultural-achievement,
or actual signfiicance - nor even (unless by blind chanse) a shadow
of those *intentions*, *associations*, or *usages*.

Again i maintain: We do not know if the "Womman of Willendorf" (aka
"the Willendorf Venus") is a religious relic handled only by a birthing
assistant, a barbie doll, house decoration, commemorative gift, etc. I
continue to rest this controversial point on the finding of female 
versions of the Keros's which were aasumed until the first one was
found to be a male-only celebration of existence. 



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EOF

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