Trapped in the bandit lair, a young woman narrates her dream. How do we read it? How does she intend us to read it? By supplementing my narratological tool-kit with a borrowed stylistic one, I map out the transitivity processes, instances of agency and density of evaluative language involved in the construction of her (dream-)world.
Then Iphinoe led him through a beautiful porch and seated him on a gleaming chair before her mistress, who turned her eyes from him, maiden cheeks flushed red. Still, despite her embarrassment, she addressed him with well-crafted words.
‘First at the head of legendary crime stands Lemnos. People shudder and moan, and can’t forget – each new horror that comes we call the hells of Lemnos.’
Stanzel, concerned with what the reader can fill in, makes a distinction between ‘spaces’ that can be filled with help from the text and ‘gaps’ in time and/or space which the reader must face alone – a post looking at indeterminacies in the Argonautica’s proem with the help of Stanzel, Iser and Sternberg. Complementary stories, reader-construction and narrative interest!