Transnarration and Transnarrative Travel: Types and Applications

Drawing upon such theoretical principles as intertextuality, transtextuality, and hypertextuality, the present article seeks to introduce the notion of transnarration and its various kinds and applications in narrative genres. Put another way, the purpose of this narratological study is to define transnarration and transnarrative travel, and discuss their stratifications and categorisations in various forms of narrative. Here, the central questions are: what are transnarration, transnarrative travel, and their different kinds in narrative genres? How can the characteristic features of transnarration be traced and analysed in genres that incorporate micro or macro narrations? To answer these questions, the present study makes frequent use of key terms associated with intertextuality, Genette’s hypertextuality in particular, as well as of narrative elements, characters specifically, in an attempt to illustrate and exemplify different manifestations, categorisations, and sub-categorisations of the notions in question. The article divides transnarrative travel into outwardly (bilateral and unilateral) and inwardly (in even and uneven narratives) and argues that transnarration is, in effect, the textual and semantic expansion of a narrative and its penetration into another via the intertextual transportation and the simultaneous appearance of major or minor characters. The paper demonstrates that the character’s reciprocal or one-sided travel from a hypotext into a hypertext, from a hypertext into a hypotext, among even or uneven narratives within a single narrative work, from a main to a frame story or among possible stories in a multi-plotted and metafictional narrative work are all manifestations of transnarration and transnarrative travel.