NARATÍVNA GRAMATIKA KLASICKEJ DETEKTÍVKY

• Authors: Martin Hudymač

Title variants

EN

Narrative grammar of classic detective fiction

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

The structural analysis was used to draw attention to the fact that some properties of narrative structures are noticeably often repeated and their repeated presence is strikingly regular. „Narrative grammar“ – concepts thus develop a high degree of abstraction, generalization whilst they only contain a limited number of the organizational principles of the narrative unit structure along with the rules of combination. So – as a matter of fact – what is being discussed here is establishing a highly abstract story structure which is supposed to produce an infinite number of specific and individual manifestations. The main part of this study is therefore a specific narration structure analysis based on a particular detective story. The author analysed the novella The Advetnure of the Resident Patient by Arthur Conan Doyle using R. Barthes´s theory complemented by T. Todorov´s concept. The structure analysis thus enabled him to outline the „narrative grammar“, which is „identical“, i.e. it is repeated in most of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The simple text of a detective story exposed to the structural analysis showed and demonstrated how simple text units work and combine, which makes the story coherent and despite the fact that the story is composed of various elements, it does not fall apart and keeps together. At the same time, the „narrative grammar“ drew attention to the way a literary character functions in and becomes a part of the text, as well as it clarified what role the „effects“ of time and space in various forms play in the making a story. The traditional distinction between classic detective fiction (E. A. Poe, A. C. Doyle, A. Christie, D. Sayers) and „hardboiled“ crime fiction typical of American writers (D. Hammett, R. Chandler and R. MacDonald) is examined in the author ś study in terms of various questions and answers. While classic detective fiction raises questions such as „who“ the crime was committed by and „how“, „hardboiled“ crime fiction asks „why“ the crime was committed. Moreover, the author tried to expand on the motifs outlined in the chapter of Czech philosopher in Miroslav Petříček´s book, i.e. the motifs of face, town, room and story, which are approached in a fundamentally different way in the two types of crime fiction in question.

Keywords

EN

NARRATIVE GRAMMAR; DETECTIVE GENRE; FICTION; TRANSFORMATION

• Publisher: Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenská literatúra (Slovak Literature)
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 19 – 43

Contributors

author

Martin Hudymač

• Ústav slovenskej literatúry SAV, Konventná 13, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovak Republic