Theoretical challenge

How can narratives in texts be reconstructed, analysed and represented in a standardised form, including all individual steps of these narratives, without prior selection and without anticipating decisions regarding their function or significance?

Methodological response

The reconstruction of every single step of a concrete narrative variant in the standardised form of hylemes is achieved through the method of hyleme analysis.

One of the main differences between the methods of hylistics and other methods such as literary studies is that hylistics is not limited to the study of narratives in texts, but can also be applied to narratives in other media forms such as images, films, etc.

Further distinctions:

Story- and Motif-Studies	Hylistics
text-based	transmedial
assumption: origin of textual ‘stories’ can be found	unknown or at least uncertain origin of (especially: mythical) narratives
study of texts that are significant in terms of their historical impact	study of (mythical) narratives, independent of their historical impact
object of study: stories/plots of texts	object of study: variants of narratives in texts (or other media)
no specific methodology for the reconstruction of stories/plots of texts	specific methodological (i.e. standardised and formalised) approaches developed specifically for the reconstruction and analysis of narrative variants (hyleme analysis, sequence analysis, and stratification analysis)

Reference: C. Zgoll 2019, 87-118.

2.1  ‘Motif’ and ‘event’ studies (Aarne-Thompson-Uther; Tomaševskij; Lotman)

The narratological term „motif“ (see the work of Aarne–Thompson–Uther, Wolpers, Kayser, among others) used by literary scholars and in motif and fairy tale studies is, on closer inspection, unsuitable for a description of minimal state- or action-bearing units, because the broad terminological spectrum of „motif“ is too diffuse. It includes, for instance, not only something like constellations („love triangle“) or character types („evil stepmother“) but also combinations of constellations and character types and other elements.

In Tomaševskij’s work, too, „motifs“ are not, at least not only, the smallest thematic units with the propositional structure of declarative sentences. When dealing with compositional motivation, i.e. the question of the artistic justification for the use of certain motifs, it becomes clear that for Tomaševskij, not only do the actions of the characters count as „motifs“ (which he refers to as ‘episodes’), but that objects (Tomaševskij also calls them „props“) can also be regarded as such smallest thematic units. Accordingly, he refers in various places to, for example, the motif of weapons, the motif of Burgundy, or the motifs steppe, thunderstorm, or forest.

Moreover, the term „motif“ is normally too narrowly confined to significant or exceptional motifs, and this leads to the narratological term “event”.

In narratology, there are efforts to limit such an expanded concept of motif to a smallest, elementary unit of action and, due to the vague use and ambiguity of the term motif, to now refer to this basic building block of an action as an „event“ (German: „Ereignis“). This gives rise to several problems. On the one hand, such an „event“ does not necessarily have to consist of a single, plot-driving unit, and on the other hand, the term „event“ is already prejudiced insofar as it is usually reserved for a unit of action that is considered extraordinary or particularly consequential, i.e. remarkable (in contrast to a mere „happening“). In Lotman’s influential conception, for example, „event“ is defined as the transfer of a character beyond the boundaries of a semantic field, i.e., as an extraordinary transgression of boundaries or norms, whereby the classification of an event as transgressive can vary between cultures and even within cultures.

„Motif“ and „Event“: Summary

• do not target all, but only selected units in texts and is therefore unsuitable for a complete (and transmedial) analysis of narratives
• do not target minimal state- or action-bearing units of narratives but often more complex and multi-part units in texts
• refer to only vaguely defined units in texts and are therefore unsuitable for a precise (and transmedial) analysis of standardised and formalised minimal state- or action-bearing units in narratives such as hylemes
• narratological and therefore not transmedial, but purely text-related terminology
  • Event = motif = smallest, elementary unit of the plot of a text (Martínez/Scheffel 2012)
  • Event = smallest indivisible unit of the sujet structure of a text (Lotman 1972)
  • Motif = theme of a part of a text that cannot be further broken down (Tomaševskij 1985)
• imprecise scope and content of motifs as smaller units in texts
  • schematised representation (single or multi-part) of events, situations, figures, objects or spaces (Wolpers 1982)
  • “the smallest unit” in “a self-sufficient narrative”; “elements of a tale (that is, a statement about an actor, an object, or an incident”; “can be a combination of all three of these elements” (Uther 2011, based on Aarne/Thompson)
  • smallest independent unit of content or tradable intertextual element of a literary work (Drux 2000)
• motif and event often aim at a certain ‘significance’ that is difficult to determine
  • a recurring, typical and therefore humanly meaningful situation (Kayser 1960)
  • structural unit as a typical, meaningful situation that encompasses general thematic ideas (Wilpert 2001)
  • action that is considered extraordinary or particularly consequential, i.e. remarkable (Anz 2007)
  • transfer of a character beyond the boundaries of a semantic field (Lotman 1972)
    
    
    Reference: C. Zgoll 2019, 90-97
    
    
    

2.2  ‘Morphological’ or structural analyses (Propp; Barthes)

The ‚morphological‘ or structural analyses of Propp and Barthes are problematic inasmuch as their definitions of „functions“ are in some instances selective, and in others they group several narrative units into one, thus blending an analysis of minimal narrative units with a functional analysis.

A major problem with Propp’s formalistic-structural functional analysis of Russian fairy tales is that the results obtained there cannot easily be generalised and that they necessitate preliminary decisions regarding the specific functionality of individual steps in a narrative. For Propp, only units that functionally advance the plot are relevant, which is why he does not define minimal state- or action-bearing units as ‘functions,’ but rather assigns several such units to a single function. When he lists „The antagonist tries to outwit his victim in order to take possession of him or his property“ as the 6th function or „Task is solved“ as No. 26, these are functional determinations that can be distributed across one or more steps (= hylemes) in the narrative, depending on the context.

Barthes took up Propp’s concept of „function“, extended it to the analysis of any kind of narrative and refined it. Notwithstanding the benefit that may lie in differentiating between „cardinal“ and „catalytic“ functions and in such a refined narratological analysis, Barthes’ concept of „minimal narrative units“ also differs significantly from hylemes as minimal state- or action-bearing units of a narrative variant, even if there may be overlaps, because Barthes focuses exclusively on the functional significance of these units; this criterion determines whether and to what extent something can be considered a „minimal narrative unit“ or not. In contrast to such a functional-analytical approach, for hyleme analysis the questions of what functions and what degree of functional importance individual units have in a narrative and whether state- or action-bearing units have only one function or several functions, and if so, which ones, are reserved for further steps or a subsequent interpretation. The identification of the minimal state- or action-bearing units of a narrative variant should precede a functional analysis and be carried out separately from it.

„Function“: Summary

• Propp (1975): ‘an action performed by an acting person … defined in terms of its significance for the course of the plot’
  • examples: ‘The hero is saved from his pursuers’ (No. 22), ‘Task is solved’ (No. 26), ‘The hero is recognised’ (No. 27), ‘The hero marries and ascends the throne’ (No. 31)
  • does not target all, but only selected, functionally important units in texts and is therefore unsuitable for a complete reconstruction and analysis of narrative variants
  • one ‘function’ can comprise several hylemes (partial overlap with the hylistic concept of hyperhylemes!) and is therefore not an analysis of minimal state- or action-bearing units of a narrative variant
• Barthes (1988): ‘smallest narrative units’ that cannot be determined by formal criteria, but only by the meaning and purpose they have within a plot
  • aims not only at minimal state- or action-bearing units (hylemes), but also at minimal constituting elements of narratives such as single figures, actions, occurrences, or determinations, and only from the perspective of functional significance
    
    
    Reference: C. Zgoll 2019, 97-102
    
    
    

2.3  Structuralist analyses (Lévi-Strauss)

Assuming that especially mythical narrative material, like language, is a carrier of meaning, but that the surface of the narrative, like the surface of language, cannot be equated with the underlying meanings, i.e. the semantic level, Lévi-Strauss searches in his analyses of mythical narratives for certain constitutive units that can be summarised and defined more according to semantic criteria than functional ones (as is the case with Propp or Barthes). For these constitutive, meaning-bearing units Lévi-Strauss coined the term „mythemes“ (grandes unités constitutives ou mythèmes).

In order to reconstruct the „mythemes“, Lévi-Strauss discusses a technique that seems to be similar to the hylistic task of searching for the minimal state- or action-bearing units of a narrative variant. Lévi-Strauss suggests that each myth should first be analysed by reproducing the sequence of events in the form of sentences that are as short as possible. Based on the description of this technique, a serious misunderstanding has crept into the use of the term „mytheme“, namely the view that these „as short as possible sentences“ are what Lévi-Strauss means by „mythemes“. However, such a view misses the specific nature of the concept of mytheme, which lies in the fact that mythemes are not individual sentences (which Lévi-Strauss calls relations), but rather larger and more profound structures of meaning, „large constitutive units“ (grandes unités constitutives), which are the most complex of all the elements that make up a myth. The matter is complicated not only by the fact that the meaning of a mytheme only emerges from the interplay and combination of several narrative units and requires interpretation, but also because the individual units that can be combined may be far apart in terms of their chronological order of narrated events, and because, according to Lévi-Strauss, „meaningful“ elements can include not only actions, but also other things (such as proper names or characteristics).

In Lévi-Strauss’ structuralist mytheme analysis, the isolation of significant elements presupposes the problematic interpretation of individual elements as significant, and it only follows from the interplay of different signifiers; the criteria for such assignments moreover remain vague. The tracing of dialectic, contradictory or complementary references between different „bundles“ of significant elements (= mythemes) is equally fraught with preconditions and thus not a formal and objective analysis of individual, minimal state- or action-bearing units of a narrative variant, such as hyleme analysis, but rather a process of interpretation that has already been framed by certain assumptions and can hardly be generalized in this form.

„Mytheme“: Summary

• not generally applicable to the analysis of all types of narratives, but limited to mythical narratives
• highly complex and special meaning in the work of its ‘inventor’ Lévi-Strauss (1958):
  • complex (!) units of meaning in bundled form that take on different meanings depending on their (antithetical or complementary) relationships to one another
• as a result, very inconsistent uses of the term in later scholarship:
  • ‘mythical episodes’ (Goebs 2002)
  • ‘independent, smallest units of events, narratives or actions’ (Turk 2003)
  • ‘shortest possible sentences’ (D’Huy 2015)
    
    
    Reference: C. Zgoll 2019, 102-108
    
    

„Mythologeme“:

• limited to mythical narratives, cannot be universalised
• overlap with the term ‘motif’ (mythologeme = mythical motif)
  • ‘individual motif of a mythical narrative’ (Zimmermann 1993), ‘recurring mythical plot element’ (Junker 2005)
• meaning remains vague
  • ancient: mythical narrative or excerpt thereof (Plat. Phaidr. 229c; Ail. var. 5,21)
  • modern: isolated myth, self-contained individual narrative of limited scope that is hardly or not at all connected to other myths (Reinhardt 2011)
• very different uses
  • the essentially stable, ‘basic structure’ of a myth (‘ritualisierter Textbestand’, Blumenberg 1984; “Genotext”, A. and J. Assmann 1998; ‘general contents of a mythological plot’, Diakonoff 1995)
  • ‘designation of the smallest, semantically and historically invariant, constitutive unit of the myth’ (Keim 1998)
  • = mythical motif (see above)
    
    
    Reference: C. Zgoll 2019, 61-78
    
    
    

2.4  General distinctions regarding the analysis of myths

The task of hylistics to divide a narrative, or more precisely: a concrete narrative variant, into its minimal state- or action-bearing units (hylemes) has points of contact on the one hand with literary motif studies (cf. Jurij Lotman, Boris Tomaševskij, Theodor Wolpers, and the classification of motifs by Aarne-Thompson-Uther) and with ‚morphological‘, narratological and structuralist analyses of fairy tales and myths on the other. Here in particular it touches on the theories of Vladimir Propp, Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, because their methods aim at a relatively detailed dissection of certain elements in fairy tales and myths, and narratives in general. There are however numerous and, in some cases, substantial differences between these methods and the hylistic approach.

Hyleme analysis does not aim at identifying (selected or all) functional units of a narrative variant as in Propp or Barthes, nor at selected and bundled significant units or elements of many narrative variants as in Lévi-Strauss, and nor at selected and rather diffuse exceptional motifs or events, as in literary motif studies. We are instead looking for the minimal state- or action-bearing units of a single narrative variant, and not only for selected units or elements but the totality of all narrative units, irrespective of their function or significance. Hyleme analysis moreover can be applied to single variants of narratives, not only especially in texts (as all the above mentioned approaches do) but in all possible media concretions (texts, images, films, pantomimes, etc.).

Reference: C. Zgoll 2020, 23-34.

Analytic approaches in the field of Literary Studies

• Mytheme or mythologeme (Lévi-Strauss; Assmann, Blumenberg, et al.):
  • not applicable to all, but only to mythical narratives
  • both terms are defined differently and used inconsistently
  • mythemes are not ‘minimal state- or action-bearing units’, but ‘units of meaning, consisting in several elements and grouped into bundles’
• Motif or event (Wilpert, Wolpers, Drux, Tomaševskij; Lotman, Martínez/Scheffel, Anz et al.):
  • do not target all, but only selected, ‘significant’ units of material and are therefore unsuitable for a complete analysis of narratives
  • often problematic determination of a (difficult to define) ‘significance’
  • often imprecise scope and content of the terms
• Function (Propp, Barthes):
  • does not target all, but only selected and functionally important units and is therefore unsuitable for a complete analysis of narratives
  • targets not only minimal state- or action-bearing units, but also minimal constituting elements of narratives such as single figures, actions, occurrences, or determinations
    
    
    

Meaning and benefits of the hyleme concept

• separation between the minimal constituting elements of narratives and the minimal state- or action-bearing units (hylemes) of narratives, otherwise usually not differentiated (see Logical structure of a hyleme)
  • elements: ‘Zeus’ + ‘thunders’, vs. hyleme: ‘Zeus thunders.’
• not vague quantitative determination of such units, but determination by formal logical criteria
  • hyleme structure consisting of logical subject + logical predicate
• not limited to functionally important or semantically significant units, but suitable for analysing all minimal state- or action-bearing units
  • therefore avoidance of the often problematic determination of whether and when something is functionally or semantically ‘significant’
• not only text-related units, but also applicable across media (see transmediality)
• not only applicable to myths, but to all types of narratives (see Different categories of Narrative Materials)
• not only applicable to all types of narratives, but to any type of ‘event’ in general (see Study of Sequences of Events)
  
  
  

2.5  General distinctions regarding the interpretation of myths

The essential polymorphy of a mythical narrative in general and the polystratic nature of its variants in particular, which are primarily the result of past conflicts over interpretational authority and must be considered in the analysis of any concrete manifestation of a narrative variant, have fundamental consequences for the interpretation of myths. They call into question the basic assumption on which text hermeneutic, narratological, ‚morphological‘, and even structuralist approaches have still relied: that a mythical narrative, manifested in a concrete variant, or even the narrative in its polymorphous totality, constitutes a structural entity whose individual elements are arranged on the same plane of reference and can therefore be made to refer to each other, be it in functional or semantic terms, or both; indeed that they must be placed within the same frame of reference in order for us to be able to make sense of a mythical narrative (e.g. Henrichs 1987, 255; Bouvrie 2002, 62).

A text hermeneutic, ‚morphological‘ or narratological examination that is oriented in a horizontal direction, as is the case with Vladimir Propp and partially with Roland Barthes as well, is aimed at syntagmatic narrative units in a functional relationship (see on the opposition of „syntagmatic“ and „paradigmatic“ structuralism Csapo 2005, 189-226, and on the problematic nature of these terminologies ibid. 234-237). Similarly, a structuralist analysis à la Claude Lévi-Strauss will assume a vertical perspective on a paradigmatic level and attempt to identify combinations of different significant units that are either mutually complementary or mutually exclusive („mythemes“ or „bundles of relations“). Functional or semantic structures of a mythical narrative are made apparent, or the structures defined in this way are compared across different myths, all under the assumption that the different elements and units of a narrative can be located on the same interpretational plane.

Especially from a structuralist perspective, all elements of a narrative exist in a ’system of meanings‘, where each element receives its specific significance in relation to other elements with a different meaning. The works of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson in theoretical linguistics form the background and the prerequisite for these approaches (see on this the remarks in Csapo 2005, 181-189 and 212-217). Lévi-Strauss, for one, does break up the narrative structure of a mythical narrative and rearranges it according to semantic criteria, but in his method the individual significant elements, e.g. of „the Oedipus myth“, are still located on a common plane of understanding and interpretation on which the individual „mythemes“ can and must be related to each other in order to unfold their respective meanings within the framework of the narrative as a whole. Lévi-Strauss thus aims for a ‚deeper‘ semantic dimension that he claims can be located underneath the narrative surface formed by the totality of all variants of the same narrative. But this premise of a uniform whole – in the shape of a single narrative variant – is problematic, to say the least, and even more questionable is the assumption that a conglomerate of multiple narrative variants can be viewed as a single unit („the“ Oedipus myth), which conceals beneath it a semantic substructure with a common plane of reference.

The implicit assumption relied upon by text hermeneutic, narratological, ‚morphological‘, and structuralist approaches, of a meaningful relationship which connects, in principle, all elements of a narrative variant – or even those of a mythical narrative in its entirety – is in this form untenable. It would be as if we tried to explain the modern appearance of the Cathedral of Syracuse as a uniform design by a single architect whose aim it was to fulfil a certain artistic intention or make a specific statement by combining a variety of different architectural styles (Greek Doric columns, Byzantine masonry with oculus windows, Renaissance side portals, baroque frontal facade, and other details). Such an attempt would certainly lead to results – but these results would hardly be adequate to the object in question.

The variant of a mythical narrative has a particular structure that can be analytically dissected to reveal its constituent elements. This however does not mean that all elements taken together must form a consistent whole. Quite the reverse is true, and we must instead assume that a mythical narrative variant is not a uniform design made of one piece, quasi ex nihilo, but a motley collection of elements whose provenance may exhibit a high degree of diversity. Only when the analysis of the superficial structure of a narrative variant (hyleme analysis) is complemented by an additional effort to identify the different layers associated with individual elements (stratification analysis), can we expect to do justice to the complexity of the object under investigation.

Recognition of the polystratic nature of mythical narrative variants necessarily leads to the conclusion that we must reckon with multiple layers, or planes of reference, when interpreting the manifestation of a narrative variant, and certainly for the interpretation of a narrative in its entirety. While this conclusion is directed against the text hermeneutic or narratological type of approach, it does not imply, in a deconstructivist sense, the dissolution of meaningful content in favour of an arbitrary plurality of interpretations that offer infinite possibilities to the recipient who is solely in charge of the process. A mythical narrative, or its variants, comprises multiple layers of meaning but not an infinite number, and these layers exist: they are not continually being read into the narrative or its variants by the recipient. An entirely different question and one that can only be answered in individual cases is whether, or to what extent, these multiple layers of meaning can still be identified and decoded.

Reference: C. Zgoll 2020, 73-76.



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