Description and Narrativity: "The Piece of String"
Algirdas Julien Greimas, Paul J. Perron, Frank Collins · New Literary History · 1989
EFORE UNDERTAKING the analysis of textual units we can identify as descriptive we must first of all attempt to situate them within the entire narrative and also distinguish them from other discursive units by using the most objective identification criteria possible. It is indeed desirable that formal segmentation procedures progressively replace our intuitive comprehension of the text and its articulations. To do this it would seem appropriate to use the knowledge we have of the narrative structures of different and comparable texts and to consider them as models enabling us to predict narrative unfolding.