Means of meaning making in literary art: focalization, mode of narration, and granularity

Instead of considering key concepts of narratology such as focalization (perspective) or mode of narration (teller vs. reflector, as Franz K. Stanzel has it) simply as criteria for a typology of texts, this paper intends to activate them as ‘symbolic forming tools’ or ‘means of meaning making’ in literary art. The fundamental claim is that an author can activate or apply them in various ways—experimenting with them—in order to obtain given meaning effect within one and the same text. Through analysis of examples it is shown how authors' variations on the focalization, the narrative mode, and the granularity axes produce semiotic effects amenable to systematic characterization. A recurrent concern in the paper is the representation of consciousness in literary art.