Metadiégesis y pseudodiégesis en la narrativa de Juan Valera

Altenberg, Tilmann ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6686-6550 2006. Metadiégesis y pseudodiégesis en la narrativa de Juan Valera. Grabe, N,, Lang, S. and Meyer-Minnemann, K., eds. La narración paradójica: "Normas narrativas" y el principio de la "transgresión", Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, pp. 155-169.

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Abstract

Metadiegesis and pseudodiegesis in the œuvre of Juan Valera The narrators in Valera generally appear as representations of their author's voice. Valera uses textual doubles to frame the story by reflecting on it and identifying its (ficticious) source, usually either a manuscript or an informant's account. While in either case the identification of the source leads the reader to expect the narrative presentation of the story proper to be delegated from the extradiegetic level to the diegetic level, in most of his texts Valera does not follow this obvious path. Rather, his homo-extradiegetic narrators tend to appropriate the narrating voice of the original source, taking over the narration on their own behalf. From a narratological perspective, on erasing the textual marks that allow readers to distinguish between different levels of narration, Valera infringes the narrative hierarchy, thereby producing instances of what has been termed pseudodiegesis. Altenberg shows that the narrative frames in Valera's œuvre, with their numerous reflections and refractions, not only raise a number of poetological issues but, more importantly, function as metafictional mises en abyme, whose performative dimension consists in illustrating the attitude that, according to the author, underlies the poetic-narrative appropriation of reality. It becomes clear that verisimilitude and coherence are the key concepts that, in Valera's view, set fiction apart from history. While the explicit confrontation of the 'historical method' and the 'novelistic method', with a clear preference for the latter, appears at a relatively late stage of Valera's writing, the dissociation of the narrator from the source of information as well as the poetological attitude behind it are characteristic of his narrative from the beginning. In conclusion, far from being an end in itself, the pseudodiegetic trangression is a textual representation of a particular way of appropriating reality that is essential to Valera's narrative poetics.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Modern Languages
Publisher:	Iberoamericana/Vervuert
ISBN:	8484892859
Last Modified:	17 Oct 2022 09:34
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/3587

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