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This study is based on an application of Alan Palmer’s work to drama analysis. In this chapter, I will, therefore, place Palmer in the context of narratological thinking before using his insight to analyse playscripts. In order to understand Palmer’s position within narrative studies, to comprehend his criticism of what is missing in these studies, and also his presentation of what has been achieved so far, it is important to trace the development of narrative studies from its early stages, that is from classical narratology to the modern branches collectively referred to as postclassical narrative studies. In this chapter, I will briefly sketch the premises of classical narratology and its shortcomings and explain how these led to the rise of newer more dynamic approaches towards narrative. Next, I will sum up the merits of contemporary “postclassical” narrative work has undergone, and focus on one of its branches, namely cognitive narrative theory. Against this background, I will present Palmer as a cognitivist, explaining the main concepts of his theoretical framework and discussing his approach. I will conclude the chapter with an account of the status of drama in narrative studies and the possible application and adaptation of Palmer’s theory to this genre.

Classical Narratology was heavily influenced by structuralist theories;¹⁴ it aimed at a (universal) grammar of narrative and attempted to reduce narrative to its basic principles and significant textual features. Within the framework of classical narratology, the requirements of a narrative are (1) the presence of a narrator; (2) that (the narrator) narrates; (3) a sequence of events. This insistence on defining narrative in a systematic way still remains the predominant definition ←33 | 34→of narrative. Consequently, this foregrounding of the presence of a narrator figure, the systematics of narrating and, most importantly, the plot makes the novel still the most prominent and preferred genre to work with for (classical) narratologists. As a result, this foregrounding limits the applicability of the theory to different genres, as well as to the application of analytical tools other than the very textual structuralist ones. It is true that classical narrative theory provides an impressive collection of frameworks for narrative analyses in the form of different categorisations of textual features. One can mention Greimas’ “semiotic square” and his typology of functional roles attributed to characters ([1973] 1987); Barthes’ ideas on the development of the plot with regard to the notion of “kernels” and “satellites” ([1966] 1975) and Bremond’s work on the representation of the logic of action/non-action (1973), to name a few. These frameworks, as mentioned before, deal with the universals of narrative, and hence are concerned with “how” narrative works. As a result, classical narratology has a descriptive nature and tends to leave out the elements that deal with components of the narrative that do not relate to the way in which a narrative is constructed. In her remarks on the limitation of classical narratology, Marie-Laure Ryan aptly states that the focus is “not on interpretation but on description, comparison, and classification” (2007:475).¹⁵ This lack of interpretive potential, resulting from the abstract nature of the classical approach, is also problematic when it comes to the practical application of narratology to narratives. Bal, Jahn and Genette, in Narrative Discourse ([1972] 1980) and Narrative Discourse Revisited ([1983] 1988), address these problems and shortcomings and offer some concepts as solutions. These concepts (which deal with more functional features of narrative in comparison to the stricter forerunners of the theory), such as mode of narration and communication, the temporal structure of narration, and focalisation, helped pave the way for more contemporary postclassical narrative studies.¹⁶

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The diversity of concepts and approaches in this postclassical trend, expanding on or finding fault with its classical precursor, is intriguing. J. Hillis Miller argues that a proper narratological reading or approach is one that will suggest a new, different way of reading.¹⁷ Wayne Booth further explores the implications of the implied author and the concept of unreliability paving the ground for a plethora of different texts and readings of not only the classic narrative form but also of different genres, like poetry, and of real-life communication.¹⁸ Ansgar Nünning, one of the theorists not convinced by the “implied author” concept, while dealing with instances of unreliability, discusses the idea of cognitive frames that readers bring into their reading in narratives.¹⁹ Brian Richardson provides postclassical narratology with many new ideas about a different logic on the sequence of the plot, a different approach to character or time in narrative and focalisation in narratives that have not been considered narrative by the classical theorists. He is one of the theorists who writes most about genres other than the novel, like drama and theatre. Dan Shen’s focus lies in narrative and stylistics, while Richard Walsh’s (2010) is the nature of fiction and how it operates exactly. These are only a few of the theorists and concepts that have been flourishing in the advent of postclassical narratology and I have limited myself to only the literary/linguistic domain. Valuable work has been done on narratology and music, law, psychology, feminism and political discourse to name, again, only a selection.²⁰

In order to overcome the problems resulting from the limiting effects of the abstract theory in classical narratology, postclassical narrative studies combine a classical structuralist concern for systematicity with a new interest in ideological, historical, philosophical and cultural contexts. This context-bound nature shifts the focus from a purely descriptive theory to various interpretive disciplines. Since postclassical narrative studies are more concerned with the pragmatic functions of narrative, their emphasis shifts from “how” narrative works to “what” narrative does. Thus the interpretation and reception of the narrative move to the foreground. Postclassical theorists do not regard the strictly structural textual elements of narrator, plot and the narrating process as the most important elements of narrative. Other textual elements (e.g. character, temporal features, space, etc. …) or supplementary features, which are neither ←35 | 36→linked to the discourse nor histoire (e.g. experientiality, reader response, cognitive features, communicational parameters, etc. …) are seen as important, if not more important than those regarded by the structuralist forerunners. Inevitably the definition of narrative changes; it becomes broader, not restricted by a narrator figure, or sequence of events, it more readily embraces different genres, text-types and media that were ignored before, such as poetry, drama, music, dance, film, painting and computer gaming. Furthermore, postclassical narrative studies engage in transgeneric approaches – where more often than not narrative theories are used in genres other than the traditionally accepted novel – and intermedial approaches where narratological concepts are used in media that are not (text-based) literary narratives. One of these important and interesting cross-disciplinary formations has resulted in the advent of cognitive narrative studies, which is the major theoretical framework of this book.

Postclassical narrative theories in general and cognitive narrative theory in particular have much to offer when the narrative text to be analysed is a playscript. This is not only due to the fact that they embrace drama as narrative but also to the emphasis they ascribe to the role of the mind and consciousness. Whereas in classical narrative studies the most important feature of a narrative is the plot,²¹ with the advent of postclassical theories other features of the narrative become equally important. In the case of cognitive narrative theory, the mind and concepts relating to the mind become the defining features of narratives. There are different aspects of the mind in relation to the narrative that become central to cognitive narrative theories: a) narrative as a way of thinking, its importance in life and to the mind; b) the interplay between the mind of the reader and the narrative; c) (the interaction of) the minds of the characters (Ryan 2010: 476). While the different concepts relating to the mind may pertain to the influence the text has on the mind in general or the interplay of the mind and cognition of the reader and text or a preoccupation with the minds of the inhabitants of a storyworld, it is easy to see how characters might easily become important features of the narrative. Since drama is seen as a genre often based on the characters’ speech and action, the benefits a cognitive narrative approach could bring to the analysis of playscripts come as no surprise.

Thus, cognitive narrative theory embraces the relationship of mind (in its diverse connotations) with various dimensions, and different uses various interpretation of stories may offer. This outlook alone invites a plethora of so many ←36 | 37→diverse approaches within the umbrella term cognitive studies. Since these studies focus on how narratives describe mental states in the cultural and social setting, it comes as little surprise that one of the approaches to take on cognitive studies fairly early on was psychology. Cognitive psychologists started working on story grammar and cognitive systems based on studies of structured, script-like mental processes, memories and perception.²² In the field of AI, many theorists have started to gain interest in a cognitive approach as well. The idea of how complex plots and stories were broken down into scripts and frames in order to arrive at an interpretation seems like a very intriguing concept.²³ Other fields joined the cognitive train and eventually one could read up on impossible, norm-challenging scenarios focusing on atypical presentations of narrative, known as unnatural narratology,²⁴ and approaches that focus on the spatiotemporal aspect of narrative as the most important concept of narrative.²⁵

Other works that have been done in the field of cognitive studies include the concept of focalisation and perspective in narratives²⁶ and storyworlds, a cognitive reception theory based on the elements of suspense and surprise in a narrative.²⁷ There are empirical studies that are interested in fMRIs (functional MRI) and in how long it actually takes to read a narrative.²⁸ Relevant to my work are all the theorists who started developing approaches dealing with researching the concept of characters in storyworlds; that is, different methods of characterisation. More specific ramifications of this interest would entail studies in techniques used by narrators, by storytellers or by other figures inhabiting storyworlds. One of the major concerns started to become the mental life of these characters and coming up with methods and techniques to understand these mental lives, individual stories and social groupings of characters in stories.²⁹ Most of these characterisation techniques work hand in hand with other cognitive fields such as transmedial narratology in order to facilitate a better understanding of a cognitive interpretation of any story-like structure and its components across semiotic media.³⁰ Folk psychology, studies of emotion in ←37 | 38→a narrative context and studies exploring how narratives about counterfactual scenarios support interpretation also often contribute to a better understanding of different cognitive approaches.

Along these lines, recent developments have underlined and expanded notions and concepts of consciousness and cognition in cognitive narrative theory. Monika Fludernik’s experientiality is one of these new concepts that shows the important role the mind plays in a narrative.³¹ To Fludernik the core property of a narrative is an experiencing consciousness. The relation between human experience and the semiotic representation of characters’ experience will guarantee the narrativity of a narrative. This representation is channelled through cognitive faculties: the understanding, perception, and the evaluation of emotions. Thus, the very common ideas in many narrative approaches, such as the notions of narrator and plot, become secondary: if the deep structure of narrativity is experientiality, then traditional restrictions of classical narratology do not apply. As long as there is an anthropomorphic experiencing mind engaged in the happenings of a storyworld then we are dealing with a narrative. It is this experientiality that makes a narrative interpretable. Such a stance towards mind and narrative would incorporate the second type of the above-mentioned (page 6) relations between mind and narrative (b): interaction between the minds of the readers and the narrative. This type of narrativity is not something that is already within the text to be decoded, but something that readers bring to the text with their reading and interpretation. In Fludernik’s case, the focus of the mind is the interplay between the characters in the storyworld and the readers, which is very close to Herman’s (2009) contribution to cognitive studies with his ideas on qualia.

Herman too believes that the consciousness factor is one of the basic elements of narrative.³² Simply put, it is the “what-it’s-like for someone or something to have a particular experience” (2009: 144) that makes a narrative a narrative. Herman mainly situates this felt, subjective property of consciousness within the storyworld, and states that it includes sensations, perceptions and thoughts. He elaborates on this what-it’s-like dimension when the consciousness of readers and the storyworld interact, but he also often focuses on instances when minds within the storyworld are affected by qualia. According to Herman, the mind is

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spread out as a distributed flow in what the characters do and say (as well as what they do not do and do not say), in the material environment that constitutes part of their interaction, in the method of narration used to present their verbal and nonverbal activities, in the readers’ own engagement with all of these representational structures. (2009:153)

As Ryan had mentioned before, the concept of mind and cognition in relation to narratives in cognitive narrative theory might relate to the interaction between the consciousness of the readers and the text (b) and the consciousness of the inhabitants of a storyworld (c). It is not always easy to tell the two apart since the act of interpretation hinges on both aspects. However, theorists have their preferences, and whereas Fludernik and Herman emphasise the interaction of the minds of readers and characters (Herman’s examples privilege characters a bit more), theorists like Alan Palmer base their approach on the storyworld and on the characters’ minds entirely. The ideas of experientiality and qualia most definitely have shaped the basis of Palmer’s approach, but he modifies and adds a few other cognitive frameworks in order to argue his point. The next section will provide a summary of Palmer’s main arguments in his approach.