June 28, 2002

Is the Rise of 'Narratology' the Same Old Story?

By CARLIN ROMANO

Academic fads can irritate, especially when they exemplify the supreme scholarly gift of making the simple complex, the colorful pale, the lively stone-dead, and the accessible inaccessible. The roughly 20-year rise of "narratology," "narrative studies," or just plain "narrative" accordingly gives one pause.

Once upon a time, to borrow a "narrative" staple, the "story" seemed a straightforward matter to the Anglo-Saxon mind. Poet William Cowper (1731-1800), committed to steering