The Text of the Seminar: Guidelines for its Interpretation

Abstract

The main theme of the seminar devoted to narrative and cultural psychology is the opposition between canon and peripeteia. At first, this opposition is considered primarily from the point of view of the individual who grasps peripeteia in relation to a canon by enacting the interpretive processes necessary to manage this opposition by “domesticating” it. Subsequently, the interpretive process and the oppositions themselves are mediated by a Peircean interpreter without whom it would be impossible to understand the other’s words, an interpreter who, in the discourse developed by Carol Feldman, is provided precisely by the interpretive community. This is a concept based on an idea of relativity. Indeed, it represents a form of deviation from an established canon, but individuals and communities may have different ideas about this deviation. Not only that, but the relativity of this concept also depends on the variety of stories in which it appears. This is why an initial distinction is introduced within the world of stories between plebeian and noble stories.