The volume sounds out the methodological potential of the central narratological category of 'voice' in its relation to 'person' and specifies this category principally against the background of Genette and Bachtin. In addition to papers with a theoretical orientation, there are also case studies, these always being linked with more general methodological concerns. The main focus is on borderline cases for unequivocally determining the position of the speaker or speech in texts. The papers examine, for example, the position and function of the text itself as a literary 'voice', and whether polyphony can be described as a variety of 'autonomous voices' without recourse to the concept of 'person'. The authors draw up new concepts of 'voice' in narrative theory, discuss the phenomenon of 'multiple voices' in literary texts and examine the category of 'voice' for its relevance as an instrument of textual analysis. The volume investigates all aspects of the relationship between the narrator's speech and that of the narrative figures within the triad of author, narrator and figure, drawing in historical aspects and insights from the psychology of cognition and reception. In this it presents innovative fundamental research on central questions of modern narrative theory.

The first part of the book presents a systematically reasoned typology of the various forms of narrative self-reflection. The second section draws on this typology for a discussion of the various formulations of narrative poetics to be found in the literature in German. A number of detailed analyses of literary works ranging from the beginnings of modern fictional narrative and taking us beyond its self-declared demise up to the immediate present serve as a basis for the discussion of the historical evolution of narrative fiction and its special situation in the 'age of simulation'.