A Study Of Marie-Laure Ryan’s Possible-World Narrative Theory

Marie-Laure Ryan(1946-)is a famous western contemporary narratologist.In the tide of the turn of narratology at the end of the 20th century,she introduced the possible-world theory,which originated from philosophy,into the study of literary narration,and reviewed the issue of literary fiction from a new standpoint and perspective,forming a relatively systematic possible-world narrative theory,extending the interdisciplinary field of narratology.Possible-world narrative theory is based on a critique of classical narrative studies of literary fiction confined to a single framework of the real world,rejecting the privileged position of the real world in determining the truth value of fiction,and considering narrative texts as a special possible world constructed by language,the world of narrative fiction,revisiting the relationship between fiction and reality and the inner workings of fictional worlds.Ryan’s possible-world narrative theory can provide a reference for reflecting on the problems of traditional fictional research and constructing a narrative theory with “world” as the root metaphor and possible worlds semantics as the interpretive method.This thesis consists of three main parts: the introduction,the body(six chapters)and the conclusion.Introduction.The introduction focuses on clarifying the feasibility and value of the study,and combing through the current state of research at home and abroad.At present,there is less attention to Ryan’s narrative theory in China,and the research is still shallow,mainly focusing on Ryan’s digital narrative and immersion poetics,with translation work lagging a little behind.Foreign reviews of Ryan’s possible-world narrative theory are more dialectical,but not comprehensive enough and not systematic.Chapter 1 makes sense of the generative context of Ryan’s possible-world narrative theory.The suspension of fiction caused by formalist and structuralist approaches in classical narratology and the tendency to generalise fiction brought about by deconstructionism in the postmodernist wave have left the question of literary fiction unresolved.With the help of modal logic,logical philosophers reenabled the concept of the possible world and brought inspiration to the study of literary fiction.In the process of narratologists consciously handling the issue of literary fiction with the possible-world theory,the possible-world theory realized the literary transfer and profoundly influenced Ryan’s possible-world narrative theory.Chapter 2 uses the key words “world”,“modal logic” and “fictionality and narrativity” to build up a theoretical framework for Ryan’s possible-world narrative theory.The theoretical framework of Ryan’s possible-world narrative theory.The “world” as the root metaphor embodies the set possible-world narrative theory;modal logic as the methodology of possible worlds semantics provides the legitimacy of possible worlds;fictionality and narrativity are the grounding points throughout Ryan’s possible-world narrative theory,the former can describe the external relations of narrative fictional worlds,and the latter focusing on the internal structure of narrative fictional worlds.Chapters 3,4 and 5 elaborate the main elements of Ryan’s possible-world narrative theory.The first is to explore how Ryan establishes the existence of a narrative fictional world.Following the idea of possible worlds theory,Ryan synthesises Lewis’ s theory of indexicality and Rescher’s theory of psychological construction,and proposes “recentring” and “the principle of minimal departure” to outline the relationship between the fictional world of narrative and the real world while maintaining its independence.Secondly,Ryan’s description of the external relations of narrative fictional worlds is elucidated.By assigning values and combinations to the nine access relations,Ryan measures the proximity of narrative fictional worlds to the real world,and establishes a system of literary classification of narrative fictional worlds.Transfictionality,also known as “transworld identity”,explores the degree of similarity that exists between two fictional worlds,and Ryan fine-tunes this along the lines of Dolezêl’s “post-modern rewriting” by identifying four manifestations of transfictionality and four conditions for meeting it.Finally,shifting from the external relations of the narrative fictional world to the interior of the narrative fictional world,the interior of the narrative fictional world is considered as the two main subdomains of the textual reality domain(the textual actual world)and the textual fictional domain(the private world of the characters).Referring to Dolezêl’s modal system,Ryan divides the private world of the characters into four sub-worlds: the world of knowledge,the world of obligation,the world of desire and the world of fantasy,explaining the tension between the superposition and movement of the modal worlds.Chapter 6 reviews Ryan’s possible-world narrative theory,seeking to develop a dialectical and clear understanding.Compared to other scholars of possible-world narrative theory,Ryan has studied more comprehensively and deeply,and has had a significant impact on narrative theory,literary reception,literary criticism and literary production.Looking back at our traditional literary contexts,conceptual categories such as “mood” and “otherworldliness” can also be aligned with and complement them.The practical implications of this theory are profound in its rethinking of the nature of the human being,in its encouragement of people’s motivation to create the future,and in its application to the possibilities of new forms of literature and art today.The conclusion summarises the contributions of possible-world narrative theory to narratology,calling for Chinese narrative theory to build on its own strengths.It also looks forward to the practical value of possible-world narrative theory in a world where the virtual and the real are deeply integrated.