Focalisation

Determinant

Focalisation in literature is similar to point of view in literature and in filmmaking, but professionals in the field often see these two traditions as being distinctly different. Genette's work was intended to refine the notions of point of view and narrative perspective. It separates the question of "Who sees?" in a narrative from "who speaks?" A narrative where all information presented reflects the subjective perception of a certain character is said to be internally focalised. An omniscient narrator corresponds to zero focalisation. External focalisation is the camera eye.

A novel in which no simple rules restrict the transition between different focalisations could be said to be unfocalised, but specific relationships between basic types of focalisation constitute more complex focalisation strategy; for example, a novel could provide external focalisation alternating with internal focalisations through three different characters, where the second character is never focalized except after the first, and three other characters are never focalized at all.

Narratology

The specific domain of literary theory which deals with focalisation is narratology, which concerns not only distinctions between subjective and objective focalisations but various gradations between them, such as free indirect speech or quasi-direct discourse. Narratologists tend to have a difficult time agreeing on the exact definitions of categories in their field; hence its dynamic nature. Jo Alyson Parker described such transient speech as a "roving trajectory of focalisation", as seen in the works of Virginia Woolf (such as Mrs Dalloway).

References

Bibliography

References

1. (2009). "focalization". [[Oxford University Press]].
2. ''Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative'', 3rd ed., trans. Christine van Boheeman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 146; Niederhoff, Burkhard: "Focalisation", Paragraph 8. In: [https://www-archiv.fdm.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/node/18.html Hühn, Peter et al. (eds.): the living handbook of narratology.] Hamburg: Hamburg University [view date:3 February 2020].
3. Parker, Jo Alyson. (2007). "Narrative form and chaos theory in Sterne, Proust, Woolf, and Faulkner". [[Palgrave Macmillan]].