Power of the Story

When elaborating on the age-old figure of the storyteller, the cultural critic Walter Benjamin wrote that the story is essentially different from information. Whereas information has to do with instantaneous verifiability (and thus, one might say, disposability), the story's lifespan is much longer, as its meanings resonate through different storytellers, communities, artistic and narrative traditions. With this comparison as a point of departure, we will examine three exemplary cases from the West, from which we outline certain grand narratives that have had a large impact on thought, belief systems, aesthetic production and theoretical interpretation: the stories of Oedipus, Narcissus and Jesus.