A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits

Numerous attempts have been made to deal with incipits. Seeking to avoid aporias from hitherto existing approaches (first sentence, theory of narrative modes, hermeneutical, etc.), the author of this paper has opted for a communicative approach based on Andrea Del Lungo (1993), who distinguishes four incipit functions: 1) the codifying function, 2) the interest-stirring function, 3) the informing function, and 4) the dramatizing function. This choice was made with respect to maximum teachability: best possible clarity combined with a realistic requirement of student competence in textual analysis. The author shows that only because of the ambivalent status of the information allocated in an incipit can the functions 3) and 4) be correlated and he presents a functional graph in which to place incipits according to their type.