The drama as a type of utterance

The article analyses the question of whether a dramatic text can be the subject of a narratological study. The answer is negative. The author specifies the utterance registers existing in speech practice, viz. performative, representative (particularly mimetic) and narrative. The drama is a mimetic discourse that represents chiefly the performative speech behaviour of characters. The article outlines the main varieties of the performative as a non-narrative discourse that has so far been insufficiently explored in literary studies.