Narratio: The story of humanity

An Illustrated History of Narrative from the Stone Age to the Phone Age

This course is currently in development.

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A course exploring the role of narrative in human history and culture, from the Stone Age to the Phone Age. The course adopts a broad narratological approach incorporating insights from linguistics, anthropology, psychology, evolution, history and philosophy to examine the structure and meaning of a diverse range of narrative texts.

All readings provided.

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Narrative is present in every age, in every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative.... It is simply there, like life itself.

– Roland Barthes, Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives (1977)

There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.

– Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction (1979)

After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.

– Tolkien, J.R.R. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

– Muriel Rukeyser

As far as we know, human beings are the only creatures on our planet that have evolved complex language and that tell stories. Story-telling, or narrative, has probably been around for as long as groups of human beings have shared common languages, and may even have co-evolved along with language and the human brain. It may be no exaggeration, therefore, to suggest that human beings are indeed a homo fabulans or narrative species.

Today, narratives are found everywhere, in daily conversational recounts, songs, jokes, news articles, advertisements, movies, novels, short stories, video games, plays, operas, myths, fables, parables and epic poetry, to name just a few examples. They have been foundational to our psychological, social, religious, ethnic and national identities for millennia.

In this course we examine the premise that the practice of narrative or story-telling is, along with language itself, a quintessential human activity that has been instrumental in shaping our humanity - individually, collectively and even biologically. In doing so, we examine a rich selection of narrative primary sources from the earliest times until the present day. In some ways, the course may resembles “Great Books” reading course, but our scope is broader and more ambitious. We start much earlier (in the Stone Age), we end later (in the Phone Age), we cover more geography, and we incorporate more perspectives.

Narrative is immense, it’s ancient, it’s modern, it’s postmodern, it’s messy, it’s contradictory, it’s about continuity and change. But, beyond all the noise and chatter, beyond all the theories and theologies and politics, is narrative all we really have, and all we’ve ever had? Can we, out of the untold number of narratives in circulation since the beginning of time, distill something of the essence of what it means to be human?

We’ll proceed in the only way we can: by reading and discussing stories. Primary sources, in English translation, accompanied by the original text whenever possible. During tutorials, we will mainly read excerpts from representative texts, but the complete texts will be available for anyone interested in a deeper dive.

In the broadest sense, narrative can be defined simply as storytelling, the relation of a series of connected events (real or imagined) that involve one or more specific characters. Prototypically, those events occur at some point in the past, although some narratives are cast in the present tense or set in the future. We will engage with examples of narrative through lenses including:

• Context: What are the historical, social, technological factors that have shaped narrative through history?

• Universals and specifics: What are the similarities/differences between different narrative genres and eras?

• Continuity and change: What has remained the same and what has changed through the ages? 

• Intertextuality and originality: How do narratives influence each other over time?

• Genre: What are the different narrative genres?

• Mode: What are the differences between spoken and written narrative?

• Linguistics: What can a linguistic lens tell us about narrative?

• Patterns: What archetypal patterns can we find in narrative?

Michael Hall 15/2/2026