Verbatim quote · defining passage

“Originary analysis provides a simple explanation for the failure of attempts to define the “grammar” of narrative: narrative begins not with articulated language but with the originary sign. What makes storytelling a useful paradigm for culture in general is precisely the absence of any simple correspondence between the formal structures of language and the institutional structures of narrative.”

— Eric Gans, Originary Narrative · Fall 1997 · Anthropoetics