The theoretical emergence of the concept of world in narratology (storyworlds, fictional worlds), in media studies (transmedia worlds), in philosophy (possible worlds), and in cosmology (“many-worlds” models) has been accompanied, on the creative side, by a practice that I will call “the aesthetics of proliferation”. This aesthetic represents a radical break from the “textualist” schools that dominated literary theory from New Criticism to Deconstruction. With its emphasis on the signifier, at the expense of the signified, textualism regards the literary text as the gate to a meaning that was absolutely unique to it. It follows that the text was the only mode of access to its world; because textualism was reluctant to isolate a narrative level of meaning—a plot—from the global textual world, it implicitly adheres to a strict formula: one text, one world, one story.

The narrative turn that took place in the 80s can be regarded as a reaction to the radical textualism of New Criticism and Deconstruction. Narratology relies on a story/discourse dichotomy that grants equal importance to the signified (represented by story) and the signifier (represented by discourse). Stories are transmitted by texts, but, since they remain inscribed in our mind long after the signifiers have vanished from memory, their nature is much more mental than verbal.