Cyclical-serial narratives are an anthropological cultural constant. The social circles in one of the central genres of German literature since Goethes ‘Conversations among German émigrés’ – the framework cycle – tell stories in order to create social identity and counteract death. Using analyses of individual cycles, a comprehensive corpus of the genre is created, and an analysis given of the socio- and mediahistorical preconditions for their widespread reception in the age of almanac culture. In a broad mediahistorical sweep and in the context of an intermedial narratology, the course of ‘narrated narrative’ is then followed comparatistically from Sherezade and the narrative circles in the literature of the English, German and the Romance languages (Tieck, Hoffmann, Hauff, Brentano, Kleist etc.), via the magazine serial right up to cinema, radio and TV series, above all the soap opera. By focussing on the contents of the frameworks, a need is met from research into the novella, and in the same way the TV series becomes visible in its literary tradition. Narration reveals itself as an anthropological cultural constant, as narration for social identity and against death.