The subject is the object, the motif or the theme of an (artistic) representation, such as a play or a film. The subject is, therefore, the somewhat fuzzy description of the basic idea, the scheme of action, the plot, or the material of the work. Moreover, the term can be used as a synonym for the actual material of stories or lectures. In linguistics, the subject (sjužet) denotes a particular level of narrative, with the fable (Fabula) forming a similar pair as discours and histoire.The term is derived from French and can be translated with subject matter. Accordingly, the subject is the actual object of a representation. In this case, the translation shows what the main thing is: the defining and thematically defining content of a work.
Note: The following is about the linguistic aspects of the term and how Viktor Borisovič Šklovskij used it for the first time, and how Boris Viktorovič Tomaševskij incorporated the terms into the work “Theory of Literature” of 1925, which influenced the literary sciences.
Fable and subject in linguistics
Fabula and sjužet are concepts of Russian formalism. You mean my levels of narrative, which are closely interwoven. The fabula means the events and motifs of the work in their logical, causal-temporal connection, whereby the sjužet means the totality of the motifs, but in the order as they are in the work (fabel / subject).
Viktor Borisovič Šklovskij was the one who described the artistic portrayal of a narrative text as a subject for the first time, while the actual story, regardless of its representation, was named as a fable. Similarly, Boris Viktorovič Tomaševskij used the terms in his work Theory of Literature (1925). This became canonical, which is why its definition of fable and subject is usually used:
The totality of the events [in a narrated history] in their mutual inner linkage is also called a fable. […] It is not, however, done to invent an entertaining chain of events that is limited by the beginning and the end. It is necessary to distribute these events, to put them in a definite order, to present them, to make a literary combination of the fable material. The artistically constructed distribution of events in a work is called a subject.
The fable is the totality of the motifs in its logical, causal-temporal link, the subject the totality of the same motifs in the order and link in which they are present in the work. […]
Tomaševskij, Boris Viktorovič .: Fable and Sujet (1925)
This excerpt from Tomaševskij’s work takes a good look at what it is basically about differentiation. The totality of all events is called a fable, while the artistic way, where the order of the individual events is concerned, is referred to as a subject.
The sequence of events and motifs in subject and fable
Fabula to Tomaševskij (English story):
All events and motifs in the causal-temporal, logical connection
independent and therefore autonomous from the respective way of representation
Sujet to Tomaševskij (English plot):
Motifs of the fable, however, in order and linkage, as given in the work
affects the respective way of representing a story
to this presentation include:
1. Structure of time as a sequence of events
2. Structure of space
3. Choice of the narrative perspective
Note: Several years later the narrative theorist Tzvetan Todorov linked the terms histoire and discours of Émile Benveniste with the observations of Tomaševskij. Thus fabula and sjužet are not entirely synonymous to histoire and discours, but very similar in content.
