The systematic study of narrative structure and storytelling techniques across different media. It analyzes how stories are constructed, how they create meaning, and how they function as communication systems.
From Latin 'narrare' (to tell) and Greek 'logos' (study). Emerged in the 1960s through French structuralists like Roland Barthes and Gérard Genette, who applied linguistic methods to analyze storytelling as a formal system with discoverable rules and patterns.
Narratology revealed that humans are storytelling animals - we can't help but organize experience into narrative patterns! It shows why the same story structure appears in everything from ancient myths to modern blockbusters, proving that narrative is a fundamental way humans make sense of reality.
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