Configuration (narrative theory)

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Configuration is the set of characters in a text , play or film and their relationships with one another. Synonyms for this are person constellation and figure constellation . It is a narrative structure that can often be represented graphically or in tabular form - in a "configuration matrix".

Positions in literary studies

Gero von Wilpert calls configuration a “poetic structure” and defines this as “arrangement” and “mutual relationship of the individual parts, such as the characters and their conflicts in the drama”. A configuration is defined by "configuration-constitutive oppositions", i.e. opposites with regard to the social hierarchy, character, goals pursued by a figure, etc. Alliances and aversions arise, one distinguishes the protagonist (s) , antagonists , main characters, minor characters, helper characters. The result of the actis usually a configuration change, be it a change of position in the configuration, be it a figure's departure through death or the like. The configuration and its potential changeability or immutability represent a literary model of reality. Manfred Pfister defines the term somewhat narrower for the drama , which has the plot in common with the narrative texts and can therefore also be counted among the narrative texts: "By configuration we mean the subset of staff who are present on the stage at a certain point in the text".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Link , From 'Kabale und Liebe' to the 'Love Story'
  2. ^ Subject dictionary of literature , p. 424
  3. ↑ Jürgen Link , Basic Concepts in Literary Studies , p. 257
  4. ↑ Manfred Pfister, The Drama. Theory and Analysis , p. 235

literature

  • Link, Jürgen , Basic concepts in literary studies. A programmed introduction on a structuralist basis , 2nd edition, Munich 1979
  • Link, Jürgen, From 'Kabale und Liebe' to the 'Love Story'. On the evolutionary law of a bourgeois type of story . In: Jochen Schulte-Sasse (Ed.), Literarischer Kitsch , Tübingen 1979
  • Pfister, Manfred, The Drama. Theory and Analysis , 5th edition, Munich 1988
  • Gero von Wilpert : Subject dictionary of literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 231). 6th, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-520-23106-9 .