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This chapter discusses approaches to the analysis of the manifest content of narratives. The over-arching aim of these approaches is to capture a narrative's pattern. Three approaches are examined: holistic content-analysis, analysis of narrative identity, and construction of a shared narrative. Each of these is discussed in relation to its theoretical orientation, central question, orientation to method, and major concepts. An exemplar of the method is also included as well as a discussion of its general use. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the strengths and limitations of these approaches, considered as a whole.

This chapter begins by stating the ‘problem’ of absolute music: what it is in or about absolute music that gives what appears, at least, to be the same kind of deep satisfaction that the other arts, the arts with content, give. The problem thus being stated, the unenlightened one would then be ready to hear that a proposed solution to the problem of absolute music, popular both in philosophical and music-theoretical circles, is to deny that absolute music does indeed want for literary content. But here the unenlightened one becomes puzzled. So how can the appeal of absolute music be explained by appeal to its narrative content? If it has narrative content, then it isn't absolute music? The simplicity of this disguises an insight worth pursuing, which the chapter does.

Some of the historical legendary developed by Carmelites in the Middle Ages took the form of hagiographical and devotional literature. This chapter examines two anonymous examples of this genre: the Life of Angelo and the Life of Cyril of Constantinople. The legendary identities of these figures are established, and discussion centres on authorship, transmission of texts, and narrative content. The significance of the Byzantine background in two texts purporting to date from the 13th century, but in fact proving to be from the 14th or 15th century is also examined.

This chapter argues that the logically proper way to see the spate of recent attempts to put narrative interpretations on the works of absolute music, accepted as such in the canon, is to see them as attempts to demonstrate that these works are not works of absolute music at all but, in reality, programmatic works mistakenly taken to be works of absolute music. To do otherwise — in particular, to describe these interpretations as imparting narrative content to absolute music, as defined — is a logical howler. It is further argued that the bar for successful narrative interpretation of the absolute music canon — which is to say, the successful demonstration that an alleged work of absolute music is in reality program music a clef — must be raised.

This chapter analyzes Lost’s format and narrative content. It argues that both the narrative structure (flashbacks, flashforwards, and flashsideways) and the thematic content of Lost worked together to immerse viewers in the longstanding philosophical and theological debates surrounding free will/destiny and faith/reason. The chapter draws a parallel between Lost and Milton’s Paradise Lost to demonstrate that, after 9/11, Americans refocused on religious ideals given their shattered sense of freedom, righteousness, and sense of security. Ultimately, the program emphasized how Americans were in their “middle hour” of grief. That is, they wished to “do over” the past at the same time that they were living in an unstable present and looking to some “Other” to help them move into the future.