Narratology: An Introduction

Historically, as I have argued elsewhere, the distinction between fabula and sujet is already implicit in the Aristotelian view of 'whole' as against 'mythos' ( "'Elements of Tragedy and the Concept of Plot in Tragedy: On the Methodology of Constituting a Generic Whole,'" Hasifrut 4 [ 1973]: 23-69); and it was later formulated in the prevalent Renaissance and Neo-classical opposition of the 'natural order' (employed by historians) and the 'artificial order' (distinctive of literary art). There is no doubt that in the hands of the Russian Formalists some of the practical implications of this fundamental distinction were brought out more impressively than ever before; and that is why I am using fabula and sujet here rather than the more ancient terminology or, as is the fashion nowadays, some new terminology of my own. But I should perhaps warn the reader that in view of various theoretical and methodological weaknesses from which I believe the Formalist position(s) on this issue suffer, my account of these terms significantly diverges from theirs at a number of points. I should be held responsible only for the distinctions as explicitly defined in this chapter and further developed and demonstrated throughout the argument.