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lists In critical theory, and particularly postmodernism, a
metanarrative (sometimes master narrative) "is a global or
totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains
knowledge and experience" (Stephens 1998, p.6). The prefix meta
is used to mean about, a narrative is a story, so a
metanarrative is a story about a story. The term is best known
for its use by Jean-François Lyotard in the following quotation:
"Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity
towards metanarratives" (1984). By this, Lyotard meant that the
postmodern condition is characterized by an increasingly
widespread skepticism toward metanarratives, such as