'''Diegese''' é um conceito de literários, dramatúrgicos e de ficcional de uma narrativa. A diegese é a realidade própria da narrativa ("mundo ficcional", "vida fictícia"), à parte da realidade externa de quem lê (o chamado "mundo real" ou "vida real"). O '''tempo diegético''' e o '''espaço diegético''' são, assim, o tempo e o espaço que decorrem ou existem dentro da trama, com suas particularidades, limites e coerências determinadas pelo autor.

Em Cinema e outras linguagens audiovisuais, diz-se que algo é diegético quando ocorre dentro da ação narrativa ficcional do próprio filme. Por exemplo, uma música de rádio é diegética, pois está dentro do contexto ficcional.

Termo de origem grega divulgado pelos estruturalistas franceses para designar o conjunto de acções que formam uma história narrada segundo certos princípios cronológicos. O termo já aparece em Platão (República, Livro III) como simples relato de uma história pelas palavras do próprio relator (que não incluía o diálogo), por oposição a mimesis ou imitação dessa história recorrendo ao relato de personagens. Por outras palavras, o sentido da oposição que Sócrates estabelece entre diegesis e mimesis corresponde, respectivamente, à situação em que o poeta é o locutor que assume a sua própria identidade e à situação em que o poeta cria a ilusão de não ser ele o locutor. De notar que a teoria de Sócrates diz respeito à diferença entre o drama (que é sempre mimesis) e o ditirambo (que é sempre diegesis), salvaguardando-se a natureza da épica (que é ambas as coisas). Divergindo desta oposição clássica, a partir dos estudos da narrativa cinematográfica de Étienne Souriau (que chamava diegese àquilo que os formalistas russos já haviam chamado fábula) aplicados por Gérard Genette à narrativa literária, considera-se diegese o conjunto de acontecimentos narrados numa determinada dimensão espácio-temporal ("l'univers spatio-temporel désigné par le récit"), aproximando-se, neste caso, do conceito de história ou intriga. Não se confunde com o relato ou o discurso do narrador nem com a narração propriamente dita, uma vez que esta constitui o "acto narrativo" que produz o relato. 

            Conforme o narrador se posiciona na diegese assim recebe diferentes designações: homodiegético (se for uma personagem participante na história que narra); heterodiegético (se não for participante numa história narrada); autodiegético (se se tratar da narração do próprio protagonista da história). 

            Em outro plano da narrativa, consideram-se textos metadiegéticos aqueles que remetem para um plano subordinado da narração (quando um narrador introduz uma personagem que se assume ela própria também como narrador de uma história secundária); neste caso, diz-se que o primeiro narrador/texto narrado é extradiegético. A significação de diegese inicialmente proposta por Genette (de alguma forma ainda hoje repetida sem ponderação) pode levar-nos a uma aporia de difícil resolução. Como bem observa Jeremy Hawthorn no seu A Concise Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory, "if diegesis is equivalent to story, then extradiegetic must mean 'outside the story', and therefore could refer us to the actual telling of the story, the comments from a narrator who is not a member of the world of the story. But this is exactly the opposite of what we started with: for Socrates, we may remember, referred to those cases where the poet himself is the speaker, roughly what we have just termed extradiegetic." (s.v. "DIEGESIS and MIMESIS", 2ª ed., Arnold, Londres, 1994, p.44). De discutível aplicação, este termo e seus derivados não ajudam a clarificar as subtis diferenças entre termos que circulam com alguma especificidade em línguas diferentes: diegese, récit, plot, story,  fábula, trama, enredo, intriga, história, narração, narrativa, etc. Por exemplo, se se considera a diegese o mundo que a narração representa, todo aquele que se coloca fora desse mundo pertence a uma ordem necessariamente diferente dos factos narrados. É neste sentido que o conceito de nível extradiegético é falível. Se a diegese for o conjunto de sentidos que atribuímos a uma história onde entram personagens e seus valores, num dado espaço e num dado tempo, então nada pode estar fora da diegese, nenhuma instância da diegese pode existir fora dela própria. Se não for assim, não se entende como é que um narrador de uma história pode ao mesmo tempo colocar-se fora dessa história e influenciar o (dis)curso dos acontecimentos. A única forma de um narrador se colocar fora da diegese sem perder o seu controlo é fingir-se estranho ou imitando a própria realidade (princípio que, naturalmente, se liga ao conceito de ficcionalidade); neste caso, voltaríamos à primeira forma platónica: o nível extradiegético não deixou de ser o nível da mimesis, o que parece indemonstrável. Argumenta-se assim que o conceito deixa de ser operatório se apenas traduzir o significado do texto narrativo, expressão que por si só não necessita de um termo que a substitua semanticamente. Contudo, a formulação de Genette, que se tornou paradigmática, não vai mais além de esta única acepção. Por esta razão, o termo tornou-se quase incompreensível na tradição anglófona, que sempre preferiu as discussões em torno da distinção entre história (story) e intriga (plot).

'''Diegesis''' is
# the (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur; and
# telling, recounting, as opposed to showing, enacting.<ref> Gerald Prince, A Dictionary of Narratology, 2003, University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 08-03287763</ref>

In diegesis the narrator ''tells'' the story. The narrator presents to the audience or the implied readers the actions, and perhaps thoughts, of the characters.

== Diegesis in contrast to mimesis ==

''Diegesis'' (Greek διήγησις) and ''story by a narrator. The narrator may speak as a particular character or may be the ''invisible narrator'' or even the ''all-knowing narrator'' who speaks from above in the form of commenting on the action or the characters.

In Book III of his ''Republic'' (c.373BCE), the ancient Greek  philosopher epic and Republic, Book III.)</ref> All types narrate events, he argues, but by differing means. He distinguishes between narration or report (''diegesis'' (narrative description) versus ''mimesis'' (direct imitation)" (1980, 110-111).</ref>

In his ''Poetics'', the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argues that kinds of 'poetry' (the term includes drama, flute music, and lyre music for Aristotle) may be differentiated in three ways: according to their ''medium'', according to their ''objects'', and according to their ''mode'' or 'manner' (section I); "For the medium being the same, and the objects the same, the poet may imitate by narration—in which case he can either take another personality as Homer does, or speak in his own person, unchanged—or he may present all his characters as living and moving before us" (section III).

Though they conceive of ''mimesis'' in quite different ways, its relation with ''diegesis'' is identical in Plato's and Aristotle's formulations; one represents, the other reports; one embodies, the other narrates; one transforms, the other indicates; one knows only a continuous present, the other looks back on a past.

== What diegesis is ==

Diegesis may concern elements, such as characters, events and things within the main or ''primary'' narrative. However, the author may include elements which are not intended for the primary narrative, such as stories within stories; characters and events that may be referred to elsewhere or in historical contexts and that are therefore outside the main story and are thus presented in an ''extradiegetic'' situation.

== Diegesis in literature ==

For narratologists, all parts of narratives—characters, narrators, existents, actors—are characterized in terms of diegesis. For definitions of diegesis, one should consult Aristotle's ''Poetics''; Gerard Genette's ''Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method'' (Cornell University Press, 1980); or (for a readable introduction) H. Porter Abbott's ''The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative'' (Cambridge University Press 2002). In literature, discussions of diegesis tend to concern discourse/sjuzet (vs. story/fabula).

Diegesis is multi-levelled in narrative fiction. Genette distinguishes between three "diegetic levels." The '''extradiegetic level''' (the level of the narrative's telling) is, according to Prince, "external to  (not part of) any diegesis." One might think of this as what we commonly understand to be the narrator's level, the level at which exists a narrator who is not part of the story he tells. The '''diegetic level''' is understood as the level of the characters, their thoughts and actions. The '''metadiegetic level''' or '''hypodiegetic level''' is that part of a diegesis that is embedded in another one and is often understood as a story within a story, as when a diegetic narrator himself/herself tells a story.

== Diegesis in film ==

The classical distinction between the diegetic mode and the mimetic mode relate to the difference between the ''epos'' (or poetics, the cinema is an ''epic'' form that utilizes ''dramatic'' elements; this is determined by the technologies of ''the camera'' and ''editing''. Even in a spatially and temporally continuous scene (mimicking the theatrical situation, as it were), the camera ''chooses'' where to look for us. In a similar way, editing causes us to jump from one place (and time sometimes) to another, whether it be somewhere else in the room, or across town. This jump is a form of narration; it is as if a narrator whispers to us: "meanwhile, on the other side of the forest". It is for this reason that the 'story-world' in cinema is referred to as 'diegetic'; elements that belong to the film's narrative world are diegetic elements. This is why, in the cinema, we may refer to the film's ''diegetic world''

"Diegetic," in the cinema, typically refers to the internal world created by the story that the characters themselves experience and encounter: the narrative "space" that includes all the parts of the story, both those that are and those that are not actually shown on the screen (such as events that have led up to the present action; people who are being talked about; or events that are presumed to have happened elsewhere).

Thus, elements of a film can be "diegetic" or "non-diegetic."  These terms are most commonly used in reference to sound in a film, but can apply to other elements.  For example, an insert shot that depicts something that is neither taking place in the world of the film, nor is seen, imagined, or thought by a character, is a non-diegetic insert. Titles, subtitles, and voice-over narration (with some exceptions) are also non-diegetic. 

=== Film sound and music ===<!-- This section is linked from Buffy the Vampire Slayer -->

Sound in films is termed ''diegetic'' if it is part of the narrative sphere of the film. For instance, if a character in the film is playing a piano, or turns on a CD player, the resulting sound is "diegetic." If, on the other hand, music plays in the background but cannot be heard by the film's characters, it is termed ''non-diegetic'' or, more accurately, ''extra-diegetic''.  The score of a film (commonly but erroneously called the "sound track") is "non-diegetic" sound. Some examples:

* Jacques Tati's film ''Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot'' (''Mr. Hulot's Holiday'') systematically builds much of its humor through the systematic confusion and shifting placement of "diegetic" and "non-diegetic" sound-image relationships, showing that these positions depend on the audience's perception of the mimetic space of the film.

* In the ''Lost'' episode "…In Translation", Damien Rice's song "Delicate" plays over a scene of the characters on the beach, before slowing down and cutting out. It is then revealed that the song was playing on a character's Discman that has just run out of batteries.

* In the 1959 film, ''School for Scoundrels'', Alastair Sim's character, Mr. S. Potter, requests that the orchestra, unseen by the viewer, attenuate its music. 

* In ''Sunset Boulevard'' when we enter the mansion eerie organ music is playing, however, this is just the butler Max playing the organ.

* In ''Blazing Saddles'' the new sheriff rides across the desert to swelling sound, revealed eventually as Count Basie and his well-known Big Band jazz group playing their hit "April in Paris" in the middle of the desert.  Mel Brooks reuses this in ''High Anxiety'' with a symphony orchestra on a coach in the traffic surprising the protagonist, and hence the audience.

* In ''The Truman Show'', a sequence shows the characters at night, when most of them are sleeping. Soft, soothing music plays, as is common in such scenes, but we assume that it does not exist in the fictional world of the film. However, when the camera cuts to the control room of Truman's artificial world, we see that the mood music is being played by Philip Glass standing at a bank of keyboards. This abrupt shift from apparently non-diegetic to diegetic is a kind of cinematic joke.

* The same joke is used in ''I'm Gonna Git You Sucka'' where the hero's theme is heard in a non-diegetic context and then the camera pans back to show a group of musicians following him, playing the music diegetically, after their presence is pointed out by another character. The hero goes on to describe the band as his theme music, also parodying the idea of character themes in the movies that the film itself parodies.