Ancient narrative theory in practice

This chapter views the critics of the ancient Greek scholia and later Latin commentaries as practising proto-narratologists. It demonstrates that their work is clearly informed by the prevailing narratological theories of the day—the scholia by Plato and Peripatetic ‘Aristotelianism’ if not directly by the Poetics, and the Servius commentators by Horace too. They and their readers have recourse to a complex lexicon of specialized narratological terms and concepts (as knotty as anything dreamed up by the Russian formalists or French structuralists) often freely adapted from ancient theories of rhetoric. In this rhetorical-narratological context, they show a keen interest in matters of affect and cognition, in the ways that stories are formed so as to produce particular affects within and effects upon an audience, presenting a fascinating glimpse into ‘the business of narrating’ as understood by ancient theorists and critics.