Punktem wyjścia do prezentowanych rozważań jest strukturalistyczny zwrot w humanistyce, który ukazał potęgę narracji i jej uniwersalny charakter. Książka odchodzi jednak od komunikacyjnego i strukturalistycznego podejścia, zostawia na boku omówione już gdzie indziej spory dotyczące formy i postaci narracji. Chodzi tutaj przede wszystkim o inspirowaną psychoanalizą refleksję nad potrzebą i pragnieniem konstruowania opowieści, nad koniecznością konfigurowania ludzkiego doświadczenia w fabułę.

The aim of the book Around the Narrative Turn. Critical Essays is to show the effects that the narrative turn has not only on literary studies but also on various fields of arts and literature. The structuralist belief in the universal nature of narrative structures, as manifested in a variety of linguistic practices, is the starting point for this collection of essays. A narrative – a story – has been recognized by the structuralists as the most archaic form of human communication. The narrative turn has marked its presence not only in literary studies but also in historiography, psychoanalysis and medicine. This form of modelling human thought was revised by post-structuralist philosophy which, on the one hand, highlights the importance of a permanent presence of narrative in discourse and, on the other hand, reveals its referential nature and points to its involvement in fiction. By showing, especially with regard to France, the evolution of the concept of narrative as well as its philosophical and ideological implications, the author presents in his book two opposing ways of thinking about a narrative: the rhetorical and structural traditions versus cognitive and therapeutic ones.