Publication details
The representation of minor characters from the perspective of time in the Late Byzantine romance
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Citation | |
| Description | The contribution investigated the secondary characters in the Late Byzantine vernacular romances (13th–15th c.) as represented from the perspective of both the story time and discourse time. The investigation of the narratives of Tale of Achilles and Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe led to the following observations: First, a tendency that minor characters typically act in diegesis and mimesis, where they perform essential but supportive roles, has been observed. Unlike the major characters, the narrator gives them almost no space in stasis to offer us their inner experiences through internal focalization. This difference provides another distinctive feature, which assists in specifying the minor characters more closely and simultaneously distinguishing them more sharply from the major characters. Second, the fact that the representation of minor characters lacks stasis dimension does not imply a sort of incompleteness. On the contrary, due to the use of the present tense for past events, the minor characters' narrative functions stand out all the more in diegesis, where they regularly provide narrative turns indicating cognitively salient events that significantly impact the further development of the plot progression. |
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