Exploring Narrations in Drama： An Evolving Framework

There has been a gradual change of the relation in which narration stands to drama. In this process, narration in drama has undergone a series of transformations in terms of significance, appeal and functionality. It has turned, from a suppressed intrusion into dramatic verisimilitude, to a subordinate attendant on plays of reason and passion and then to an epic element in a modernistic turn, and has contemporarily come onto central stage and assumed a particular theatricality of its own. Such an evolving framework corresponds to philosophical and aesthetical developments over time and integrates into an ever-renewing semiotics of drama. Recent developments in Narratology of the theatre provide an inspiring context for understanding this evolution, as they shed light on the generic nature, communi- cational facets and discursive power of dramatic narratives.