Bearbeitung: J. Alexander Bareis

Classical structuralist narratology traditionally focussed on a synchronic view on narrative. Thus, a diachronization of narratology is long overdue. This study aims to analyze the historical development of certain fictionality-specific narrative concepts such as unreliable narration, metalepsis, metanarration, and metafiction in German literature, especially the novel, from its modern birth during the age of Enlightment until today. The main theoretical framework relies on the concept of an epistemology of fiction, which puts the special epistemological conditions within fictional worlds into focus. Partly, unreliable narration is judged by the same rules of logic as non-fictional narratives, and partly reality s normal rules of logic are at dispense within fiction: the most reliable narrator is usually the so-called omniscient narrator, a type of teller-figure which can hardly be considered truthful in non-fictional discourse. By applying the epistemology of fiction on narratives with fiction-specific concepts of narration, a new analytic tool is available which allows a diachronic perspective on narratological concepts in narrative fiction. The aim of the study is to prove or to dismiss possible historical traits of development for certain fiction-specific narrative situations.

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