Narrative Time Analysis in Tä'ammaRä Maryam
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Date
2003-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Tä'ammarä Maryam is a corpus of narratives about the miracles performed by
Virgin Mary. Although it is popular among the laity of the Ethiopian Tewahido
Orthodox Church, after being introduced in the mid of the 15th century, it has not
been investigated from the point of view of modern Narrative Theory. Aimed at
analyzing the narrative time of the Tä'ammarä Maryam that contains the collection
of recent miracles, this study discusses some features of the text. Setting,
significance of miracles and the categories are among the features of the text
considered .
The analysis of narrative time: order, duration and frequency, is mainly
based on the relevant theory by Gerard Genette and Shlomith Rimmon-kenan.
The analysis of order showed that there a chorological presentation of events.
The examination of the duration of events in the narratives indicated that scenic
representation is in the form of prayer and prescriptive utterance. Acceleration is
found in the episodes that orients the story and in the group of miracles about the
prophecies of Virgin Mary. Pause in the story is prevalent only to exalt St. Mary
while ellipsis is not in the stories.
Singulative telling is common in the stories while repetitive narration is absent in a
story but there are nine events that are recurrent in the corpus of stories
Tä'ammmrä Maryam.
As a whole the analysis of narrative time indicates that each miracle is
structured from a perspective to create a single effect on the mass that hears
/reads/ it. This effect is persuading to honor and believe in the intercessory role of
Virgin Mary-as owed by Her Son, Christ.
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Time Analysis