Suspense, surprise and temporal dynamics in Hysmine and Hysminias and its forerunners

FERNÁNDEZ, TOMÁS

Gante

Congreso; VI International Conference on the Ancient Novel; 2022

Typically, suspense in a narrative is associated to the reader’s lack of knowledge on what will happen next. Yet scholars point out that ‘anomalous suspense’ is at work, for instance, in Homer, where the audience feel suspense despite its awareness of what is going to happen next. This presentation will argue that a similar suspense and, we may add, surprise, is at work in the Byzantine novel, particularly in Hysmine and Hysminias (12th c.). There is, however, one crucial difference with Homer: in him, suspense and surprise are still anchored in the temporal structure of the work, while the Byzantine novel goes a step beyond. Usually, temporal dynamics are key to understanding suspense and curiosity. No less than Homer, the Greek novel recurs to innovative temporal dynamics, with the frequent and sometimes abrupt interweaving of narrative threads, or a forceful in medias res beginning, undreamed of in previous narratives. Suspense and surprise may be of different types, but those indebted to temporal dynamics are doubtlessly present in the Greek novel – even though the reader knows the outcome of the narrative, as in Homer. In the Byzantine novel, I will argue, the role of non-linear temporal dynamics is less prominent towards creating suspense and surprise; they are related, instead, to the devices the writer utilizes in the space of the text rather than in the time-space of his storyworld. The Byzantine novel has shifted the focus to a narrative praxis where temporal twists and, more in general, events that happen in time, are less crucial. Yet suspense and surprise are still key elements: not so much in the plot as in the wrongly called ‚retardation‛ elements (in which, apparently, the plot does not move forward). The reader of the Byzantine novel justly wonders at every page what feature of the Greek novel will be selected for re-enactment, how it will be modified, what twist in the topos of the seastorm will be applied, what new ironic perspective on love will be advanced, etc. The active engagement required of the reader, whose thrilling experience is linked to a lively set of expectations about what will happen next in the space of the text, produces a different and, we may say, very unusual combination of suspense and surprise. The aim of this presentation is to tackle those in their relation to the temporal dynamics at work.