73-458: Gilbert Sorrentino (April 27, 1929 – May 18, 2006) was an American novelist, short story writer, poet, literary critic, professor, and editor. In over twenty-five works of fiction and poetry, Sorrentino explored the comic and formal possibilities of language and literature. His insistence on the primacy of language and his forays into metafiction mark him as a postmodernist , but he is also known for his ear for American speech and his attention to
146-760: A 1990 series of short stories about the Vietnam War . Fictional works that explicitly involve supernatural, magical, or scientifically impossible elements are often classified under the genre of fantasy , including Lewis Carroll 's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Lord of the Rings , and J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter series. Creators of fantasy sometimes introduce imaginary creatures and beings such as dragons and fairies. Types of written fiction in prose are distinguished by relative length and include: Fiction writing
219-784: A TV writer living in London. Fiction Fiction is any creative work , chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals , events, or places that are imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history , fact , or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, "fiction" refers to written narratives in prose – often referring specifically to novels , novellas , and short stories . More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium , including not just writings but also live theatrical performances , films , television programs , radio dramas , comics , role-playing games , and video games . Typically,
292-404: A certain point of view. The distinction between the two may be best defined from the viewpoint of the audience, according to whom a work is non-fiction if its people, settings, and plot are perceived entirely as historically or factually real, while a work is regarded as fiction if it deviates from reality in any of those areas. The distinction is further obscured by a philosophical understanding, on
365-447: A completely imaginary way or been followed by major new events that are completely imaginary (the genre of alternative history ). Or, it depicts impossible technology or technology that defies current scientific understandings or capabilities (the genre of science fiction ). Contrarily, realistic fiction involves a story whose basic setting (time and location in the world) is, in fact, real and whose events could believably happen in
438-475: A figure from history, Bonnie Prince Charlie , and takes part in the Battle of Prestonpans . Some works of fiction are slightly or greatly re-imagined based on some originally true story, or a reconstructed biography. Often, even when the fictional story is based on fact, there may be additions and subtractions from the true story to make it more interesting. An example is Tim O'Brien 's The Things They Carried ,
511-700: A major impact on the creation and distribution of fiction, calling into question the feasibility of copyright as a means to ensure royalties are paid to copyright holders. Also, digital libraries such as Project Gutenberg make public domain texts more readily available. The combination of inexpensive home computers, the Internet, and the creativity of its users has also led to new forms of fiction, such as interactive computer games or computer-generated comics. Countless forums for fan fiction can be found online, where loyal followers of specific fictional realms create and distribute derivative stories. The Internet
584-403: A metafictional reading. Implicit metafiction is described as a mode of showing. Direct metafiction establishes a reference within the text one is just reading. In contrast to this, indirect metafiction consists in metareferences external to this text, such as reflections on other specific literary works or genres (as in parodies) and general discussions of an aesthetic issue. Since there is always
657-414: A model for the construction of 'reality' rather than a reflection of it. Reality itself became regarded as a construct instead of objective truth. Through its formal self-exploration, metafiction thus became the device that explores the question of how human beings construct their experience of the world. Robert Scholes identifies the time around 1970 as the peak of experimental fiction (of which metafiction
730-533: A province, they arrange for a sham governorship of a village on their estate. At one later point, Don Quixote visits a printing house where Avellaneda’s book is being printed and the protagonists encounter a character from that book, whom they make swear that the Quixote and Sancho in Avellaneda’s book are imposters. It is with LOVE as with CUCKOLDOM — —But now I am talking of beginning a book, and have long had
803-413: A relationship between the text in which indirect metafiction occurs and the referenced external texts or issues, indirect metafiction always impacts the text one is reading, albeit in an indirect way. Critical metafiction aims to find the artificiality or fictionality of a text in some critical way, which is frequently done in postmodernist fiction. Non-critical metafiction does not criticize or undermine
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#1732793900079876-510: A story being authentic (a device frequently used in realistic fiction) would be an example of (non-critical) truth-centred metafiction. In 1615, Miguel de Cervantes published a second part to his Don Quixote , which had appeared ten years earlier in 1605 (the two parts are now normally published together). Cervantes produced the sequel partially because of his anger at a spurious Part Two that had appeared in 1614 written by Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda . In Cervantes’s Part Two, several of
949-570: A subset (written fiction that aligns to a particular genre ), or its opposite: an evaluative label for written fiction that comprises popular culture , as artistically or intellectually inferior to high culture . Regardless, fiction is commonly broken down into a variety of genres: categories of fiction, each differentiated by a particular unifying tone or style ; set of narrative techniques , archetypes , or other tropes; media content ; or other popularly defined criterion. Science fiction predicts or supposes technologies that are not realities at
1022-458: A thing upon my mind to be imparted to the reader, which if not imparted now, can never be imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the COMPARISON may be imparted to him any hour of the day)—I'll just mention it, and begin in good earnest. The thing is this. Of the several ways of beginning a book which is now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is
1095-501: A university or a similar institution, and with the continuation of such positions determined not by book sales but by critical acclaim by other established literary authors and critics. On the other hand, he suggests, genre fiction writers tend to support themselves by book sales. However, in an interview, John Updike lamented that "the category of 'literary fiction' has sprung up recently to torment people like me who just set out to write books, and if anybody wanted to read them, terrific,
1168-434: A written work of fiction that: Literary fiction is often used as a synonym for literature , in the narrow sense of writings specifically considered to be an art form. While literary fiction is sometimes regarded as superior to genre fiction, the two are not mutually exclusive, and major literary figures have employed the genres of science fiction, crime fiction , romance , etc., to create works of literature. Furthermore,
1241-444: Is a form of fiction that emphasizes its own narrative structure in a way that inherently reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story-telling, and works of metafiction directly or indirectly draw attention to their status as artifacts. Metafiction is frequently used as a form of parody or a tool to undermine literary conventions and explore
1314-508: Is a part of media studies. Examples of prominent fictionalization in the creative arts include those in the general context of World War II in popular culture and specifically Nazi German leaders such as Adolf Hitler in popular culture and Reinhard Heydrich in popular culture . For instance, American actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin portrayed the eccentric despot Adenoid Hynkel in the 1940 satirical film The Great Dictator . The unhinged, unintelligent figure fictionalized real events from
1387-446: Is also used for the development of blog fiction , where a story is delivered through a blog either as flash fiction or serial blog, and collaborative fiction , where a story is written sequentially by different authors, or the entire text can be revised by anyone using a wiki . The definition of literary fiction is controversial. It may refer to any work of fiction in a written form. However, various other definitions exist, including
1460-408: Is an instrumental part) and names a lack of commercial and critical success as reasons for its subsequent decline. The development toward metafictional writing in postmodernism generated mixed responses. Some critics argued that it signified the decadence of the novel and an exhaustion of the artistic capabilities of the medium, with some going as far as to call it the ' death of the novel '. Others see
1533-500: Is called metalepsis , an implicitly metafictional device when used in literature. Metalepsis has a high inherent potential to disrupt aesthetic illusion and confronts the reader with the fictionality of the text. However, as metalepsis is used as a plot device that has been introduced as part of the world of The Eyre Affair it can, in this instance, have the opposite effect and is compatible with immersion. It can thus be seen as an example of metafiction that does not (necessarily) break
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#17327939000791606-439: Is characterized by a lesser degree of adherence to realistic or plausible individuals, events, or places, while the umbrella genre of realistic fiction is characterized by a greater degree. For instance, speculative fiction may depict an entirely imaginary universe or one in which the laws of nature do not strictly apply (often, the sub-genre of fantasy ). Or, it depicts true historical moments, except that they have concluded in
1679-421: Is described as a mode of telling. An example would be a narrator explaining the process of creating the story they are telling. Rather than commenting on the text, implicit metafiction foregrounds the medium or its status as an artifact through various, for example disruptive, techniques such as metalepsis . It relies more than other forms of metafiction on the reader's ability to recognize these devices to evoke
1752-401: Is explicit, critical indirect metafiction). Fourth, he covertly foregrounds the fact that the characters in the novel are fictional characters, rather than masking this aspect, as would be the case in non-metafictional writing. Therefore, this scene features metafictional elements with reference to the medium (the novel), the form of art (literature), a genre (realism), and arguably also lays bare
1825-484: Is killed as well. British mystery novelist and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz took a highly metafictional approach to his series of satirical murder mysteries that began with The Word is Murder in 2017. Horowitz casts himself as a modern-day Dr. Watson who is hired by a brilliant but enigmatic ex-Scotland Yard man named Daniel Hawthorne to chronicle Hawthorne's cases. Alongside the mystery plots, Horowitz mixes anecdotes about his own professional and personal life as
1898-496: Is known as fictionalization . The opposite circumstance, in which the physical world or a real turn of events seem influenced by past fiction, is commonly described by the phrase " life imitating art ". The latter phrase is popularity associated with the Anglo-Irish fiction writer Oscar Wilde . The alteration of actual happenings into a fictional format, with this involving a dramatic representation of real events or people,
1971-446: Is known as both fictionalization , or, more narrowly for visual performance works like in theatre and film, dramatization . According to the academic publication Oxford Reference , a work set up this way will have a "narrative based partly or wholly on fact but written as if it were fiction" such that "[f]ilms and broadcast dramas of this kind often bear the label 'based on a true story'." In intellectual research, evaluating this process
2044-492: Is most long-established in the realm of literature (written narrative fiction), the broad study of the nature, function, and meaning of fiction is called literary theory , and the narrower interpretation of specific fictional texts is called literary criticism (with subsets like film criticism and theatre criticism also now long-established). Aside from real-world connections, some fictional works may depict characters and events within their own context, entirely separate from
2117-427: Is often described as "elegantly written, lyrical, and ... layered". The tone of literary fiction can be darker than genre fiction, while the pacing of literary fiction may be slower than popular fiction. As Terrence Rafferty notes, "literary fiction, by its nature, allows itself to dawdle, to linger on stray beauties even at the risk of losing its way". Based on how literary fiction is defined, genre fiction may be
2190-627: Is the author of the novels Sound on Sound , Trance , The Fugitives , and a non-fiction book Now Beacon, Now Sea: A Son's Memoir . He eventually took up positions at Sarah Lawrence College , Columbia University , the University of Scranton and the New School for Social Research in New York before being hired as a professor of English at Stanford University , where he taught from 1982 to 1999. Although Sorrentino never finished his degree,
2263-407: Is the process by which an author or creator produces a fictional work. Some elements of the writing process may be planned in advance, while others may come about spontaneously. Fiction writers use different writing styles and have distinct writers' voices when writing fictional stories. The use of real events or real individuals as direct inspiration for imaginary events or imaginary individuals
Gilbert Sorrentino - Misplaced Pages Continue
2336-422: The human condition . In general, it focuses on "introspective, in-depth character studies" of "interesting, complex and developed" characters. This contrasts with genre fiction where plot is the central concern. Usually in literary fiction the focus is on the "inner story" of the characters who drive the plot, with detailed motivations to elicit "emotional involvement" in the reader. The style of literary fiction
2409-521: The 18th and 19th centuries. They were often associated with Enlightenment ideas such as empiricism and agnosticism . Realism developed as a literary style at this time. New forms of mass media developed in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, including popular-fiction magazines and early film. Interactive fiction was developed in the late-20th century through video games. Certain basic elements define all works of narrative , including all works of narrative fiction. Namely, all narratives include
2482-686: The 1980s, contemporary Latino literature has an abundance of self-reflexive, metafictional works, including novels and short stories by Junot Díaz ( The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao ), Sandra Cisneros ( Caramelo ), Salvador Plascencia ( The People of Paper ), Carmen Maria Machado ( Her Body and Other Parties ), Rita Indiana ( Tentacle ), and Valeria Luiselli ( Lost Children Archive ). Also in Latin America, but much earlier, Ecuadorian writer Pablo Palacio published his experimental novella Débora in October 1927. Some of
2555-773: The American Academy of Arts and Letters (declined, 1982), the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature (1985), the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction (1992), and the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. In 2020, Community Board 10 and the New York City Parks Department named a section of Leif Erickson Park, in Bay Ridge, after Sorrentino. Metafiction Metafiction
2628-760: The Nine ( Kim Man-jung , 1687), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman ( Laurence Sterne , 1759), Sartor Resartus ( Thomas Carlyle , 1833–34), and Vanity Fair ( William Makepeace Thackeray , 1847). Metafiction became particularly prominent in the 1960s, with works such as Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth , Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov , "The Babysitter" and "The Magic Poker" by Robert Coover , Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut , The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles , The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon , and Willie Master's Lonesome Wife by William H. Gass . Since
2701-655: The Old West." In 2010 a posthumous novel, The Abyss of Human Illusion , was published by Coffee House Press with a preface by Christopher Sorrentino . Sorrentino was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including Guggenheim Fellowships in Fiction in 1973 and 1987, the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature (1981), PEN/Faulkner Award finalist in 1981 and 2003, the Mildred and Harold Strauss Livings of
2774-472: The aesthetic illusion. One contemporary example of metafiction in a video game is Undertale , a 2015 role-playing game created by Toby Fox and Temmie Chang. Undertale has many examples of metafiction, with the largest overall example being how the game uses one of its characters, "Flowey the Flower", to predict how the player will view and interact with the game. Flowey was given the ability to "save/load"
2847-419: The artificiality or fictionality of a text and can, for example, be used to "suggest that the story one is reading is authentic". While all metafiction somehow deals with the medial quality of fiction or narrative and is thus generally media-centred, in some cases there is an additional focus on the truthfulness or inventiveness (fictionality) of a text, which merits mention as a specific form. The suggestion of
2920-604: The audience's willing suspension of disbelief . The effects of experiencing fiction, and the way the audience is changed by the new information they discover, has been studied for centuries. Also, infinite fictional possibilities themselves signal the impossibility of fully knowing reality, provocatively demonstrating philosophical notions, such as there potentially being no criterion to measure constructs of reality. In contrast to fiction, creators of non-fiction assume responsibility for presenting information (and sometimes opinion) based only in historical and factual reality. Despite
2993-415: The audience, including elements such as romance , piracy , and religious ceremonies . Heroic romance was developed in medieval Europe , incorporating elements associated with fantasy , including supernatural elements and chivalry . The structure of the modern novel was developed by Miguel de Cervantes with Don Quixote in the early-17th century. The novel became a primary medium of fiction in
Gilbert Sorrentino - Misplaced Pages Continue
3066-409: The best—I'm sure it is the most religious—for I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second. In this scene Tristram Shandy , the eponymous character and narrator of the novel, foregrounds the process of creating literature as he interrupts his previous thought and begins to talk about the beginnings of books. The scene evokes an explicitly metafictional response to
3139-414: The characters are assumed to have read Part One, and are thus familiar with the history and eccentricities of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. In particular, an unnamed Duke and Duchess are delighted at meeting the pair they have read about and use their wealth to devise elaborate tricks and practical jokes playing on their knowledge. For example, knowing from Part One that Sancho dreams of becoming governor of
3212-581: The context of the real world. One realistic fiction sub-genre is historical fiction , centered around true major events and time periods in the past. The attempt to make stories feel faithful to reality or to more objectively describe details, and the 19th-century artistic movement that began to vigorously promote this approach, is called literary realism , which incorporates some works of both fiction and non-fiction. Storytelling has existed in all human cultures, and each culture incorporates different elements of truth and fiction into storytelling. Early fiction
3285-442: The elements of character , conflict , narrative mode , plot , setting , and theme . Characters are individuals inside a work of story, conflicts are the tension or problem that drives characters' thoughts and actions, narrative modes are the ways in which a story is communicated, plots are the sequence of events in a story, settings are the story's locations in time and space, and themes are deeper messages or interpretations about
3358-447: The fictional process, putting emphasis on one or more of these aspects. These developments were part of a larger movement (arguably a meta referential turn ) which, approximately from the 1960s onwards, was the consequence of an increasing social and cultural self-consciousness, stemming from, as Patricia Waugh puts it, "a more general cultural interest in the problem of how human beings reflect, construct and mediate their experience in
3431-474: The fictionality of a work is publicly expressed, so the audience expects the work to deviate to a greater or lesser degree from the real world rather than presenting, for instance, only factually accurate portrayals or characters who are actual people. Because fiction is generally understood as not adhering to the real world, the themes and context of a work, such as if and how it relates to real-world issues or events, are open to interpretation . Since fiction
3504-479: The fictionality of the characters and thus of the novel itself (which could be classified as critical, direct, fiction-centred metafiction). The Eyre Affair (2001) is set in an alternative history in which it is possible to enter the world of a work of literature through the use of a machine. In the novel, literary detective Thursday Next chases a criminal through the world of Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre . This paradoxical transgression of narrative boundaries
3577-399: The game after the "True Pacifist" route, requesting you let the characters live their life in the best possible way. This presents the player with an indirect choice, to ignore Flowey, or to ignore the game. The game is fully prepared for both of these options, and, if you perform a "Genocide" route by ignoring Flowey and killing everyone, he assists the player in their mass murder, until Flowey
3650-412: The game, like how a player is able to save/load a game file in most video games. Flowey uses their powers to see the world play out differently based on his actions, such as being nice to everyone, and killing everyone. This follows a similar way the player would experience the game, being nice to everyone, and being prepared to murder everyone. However, Flowey stops you, and directly asks you not to restart
3723-564: The head of Stanford's writing program opined that "Sorrentino is a very learned man – we weren't for a second concerned about a Good Housekeeping seal of approval." Sorrentino's students included the writers Ammiel Alcalay , Trey Ellis , Jeffrey Eugenides , Nicole Krauss , and Jenny Offill . Following his retirement from Stanford, Sorrentino returned to Bay Ridge, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He died in Brooklyn on May 18, 2006. Sorrentino's first novel, The Sky Changes ,
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#17327939000793796-574: The imperial period. Plasmatic narrative, following entirely invented characters and events, was developed through ancient drama and New Comedy . One common structure among early fiction is a series of strange and fantastic adventures as early writers test the limits of fiction writing. Milesian tales were an early example of fiction writing in Ancient Greece and Italy. As fiction writing developed in Ancient Greece, relatable characters and plausible scenarios were emphasized to better connect with
3869-441: The known physical universe: an independent fictional universe . The creative art of constructing such an imaginary world is known as worldbuilding . Literary critic James Wood argues that "fiction is both artifice and verisimilitude ", meaning that it requires both creative inventions as well as some acceptable degree of believability among its audience, a notion often encapsulated in the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's idea of
3942-576: The manuscript of Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964), Sorrentino was an editor at Grove Press from 1965 to 1970, where one of his editorial projects was The Autobiography of Malcolm X . Sorrentino's first marriage, to the former Elsene Wiessner, ended in divorce. The disintegration of their marriage is fictionalized in Sorrentino's first novel, The Sky Changes . They had two children, Jesse (b. 1954) and Delia (1957–2002). In 1968, Sorrentino married Victoria Ortiz. Their son, Christopher Sorrentino ,
4015-508: The more the merrier. ... I'm a genre writer of a sort. I write literary fiction, which is like spy fiction or chick lit". Likewise, on The Charlie Rose Show , he argued that this term, when applied to his work, greatly limited him and his expectations of what might come of his writing, so he does not really like it. He suggested that all his works are literary, simply because "they are written in words". Literary fiction often involves social commentary , political criticism , or reflection on
4088-406: The novel emerged as the dominant literary form, narrative literature dealt only with the extraordinary or the allegorical – with kings and queens, giants and dragons, sublime virtue and diabolic evil. There was no risk of confusing that sort of thing with life, of course. But as soon as the novel got going, you might pick up a book at any time and read about an ordinary chap called Joe Smith doing just
4161-406: The novel, where such a scene might be more willingly accepted by the reader) the metafictional reflection is foregrounded. Additionally, the narrator addresses readers directly, thereby confronting readers with the fact that they are reading a constructed text. Has it ever occurred to you that novelists are using up experience at a dangerous rate? No, I see it hasn't. Well, then, consider that before
4234-493: The one hand, that the truth can be presented through imaginary channels and constructions, while, on the other hand, works of the imagination can just as well bring about significant new perspectives on, or conclusions about, truth and reality. All types of fiction invite their audience to explore real ideas, issues, or possibilities using an otherwise imaginary setting or using something similar to reality, though still distinct from it. The umbrella genre of speculative fiction
4307-765: The particularities of place, especially of his native Brooklyn . Sorrentino was born in Brooklyn , New York, in 1929. He grew up in the borough's Bay Ridge neighborhood and attended Brooklyn College before and after serving in the United States Army Medical Corps during the Korean War . In 1956, Sorrentino founded the literary magazine Neon with friends from Brooklyn College, including childhood friend Hubert Selby Jr. He edited Neon from 1956 to 1960, then served as editor for Kulchur from 1961 to 1963. After working closely with Selby on
4380-425: The player question the bounds between the fiction of the video game and the reality of them playing the game. According to Werner Wolf, metafiction can be differentiated into four pairs of forms that can be combined with each other. Explicit metafiction is identifiable through its use of clear metafictional elements on the surface of a text. It comments on its own artificiality and is quotable. Explicit metafiction
4453-412: The problem (and by addressing a problem of the novel one is just reading but also a general problem, the excerpt is thus an example of both direct and indirect metafiction, which may additionally be classified as generally media-centred, non-critical metafiction). Through the lack of context to this sudden change of topic (writing a book is not a plot point, nor does this scene take place at the beginning of
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#17327939000794526-518: The relationship between literature and reality, life and art. Although metafiction is most commonly associated with postmodern literature that developed in the mid-20th century, its use can be traced back to much earlier works of fiction, such as The Canterbury Tales ( Geoffrey Chaucer , 1387), Don Quixote Part Two ( Miguel de Cervantes , 1615), " Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz " ( Johann Valentin Andreae , 1617), The Cloud Dream of
4599-495: The self-consciousness of fictional writing as a way to gain a deeper understanding of the medium and a path that leads to innovation that resulted in the emergence of new forms of literature, such as the historiographic novel by Linda Hutcheon . Video games also started to draw on concepts of metafiction, particularly with the rise of independent video games in the 2010s. Games like The Magic Circle , The Beginner's Guide , and Pony Island use various techniques as to have
4672-541: The sort of things you did yourself. Now, I know what you're going to say – you're going to say that the novelist still has to invent a lot. But that's just the point: there've been such a fantastic number of novels written in the past couple of centuries that they've just about exhausted the possibilities of life. So all of us, you see, are really enacting events that have already been written about in some novel or other. This scene from The British Museum Is Falling Down (1965) features several instances of metafiction. First,
4745-412: The speaker, Adam Appleby (the protagonist of the novel) discusses the change the rise of the novel brought upon the literary landscape, specifically with regard to thematic changes that occurred. Second, he talks about the mimetic aspect of realist novels. Third, he alludes to the notion that the capabilities of literature have been exhausted, and thus to the idea of the death of the novel (all of this
4818-541: The story that its audience is left to discuss and reflect upon. Traditionally, fiction includes novels, short stories, fables , legends , myths , fairy tales , epic and narrative poetry , plays (including operas , musicals , dramas, puppet plays , and various kinds of theatrical dances ). However, fiction may also encompass comic books , and many animated cartoons , stop motions , anime , manga , films , video games , radio programs , television programs ( comedies and dramas ), etc. The Internet has had
4891-448: The study of genre fiction has developed within academia in recent decades. The term is sometimes used such as to equate literary fiction to literature. The accuracy of this is debated. Neal Stephenson has suggested that, while any definition will be simplistic, there is today a general cultural difference between literary and genre fiction. On the one hand literary authors nowadays are frequently supported by patronage, with employment at
4964-824: The techniques he employed in the book include stream of consciousness and metafiction. The term 'metafiction' was coined in 1970 by William H. Gass in his book Fiction and the Figures of Life . Gass describes the increasing use of metafiction at the time as a result of authors developing a better understanding of the medium. This new understanding of the medium led to a major change in the approach toward fiction. Theoretical issues became more prominent aspects, resulting in increased self-reflexivity and formal uncertainty. Robert Scholes expands upon Gass' theory and identifies four forms of criticism on fiction, which he refers to as formal, behavioural, structural, and philosophical criticism. Metafiction assimilates these perspectives into
5037-509: The time of the work's creation: Jules Verne 's novel From the Earth to the Moon was published in 1865, but only in 1969 did astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to land on the Moon. Historical fiction places imaginary characters into real historical events. In the 1814 historical novel Waverley , Sir Walter Scott 's fictional character Edward Waverley meets
5110-535: The traditional view that fiction and non-fiction are opposites, some works (particularly in the modern era) blur this boundary, particularly works that fall under certain experimental storytelling genres—including some postmodern fiction , autofiction , or creative nonfiction like non-fiction novels and docudramas —as well as the deliberate literary fraud of falsely marketing fiction as nonfiction. Furthermore, even most works of fiction usually have elements of, or grounding in, truth of some kind, or truth from
5183-470: The world." Due to this development, an increasing number of novelists rejected the notion of rendering the world through fiction. The new principle became to create through the medium of language a world that does not reflect the real world. Language was considered an "independent, self-contained system which generates its own 'meanings. ' " and a means of mediating knowledge of the world. Thus, literary fiction, which constructs worlds through language, became
5256-472: Was closely associated with history and myth . Greek poets such as Homer , Hesiod , and Aesop developed fictional stories that were told first through oral storytelling and then in writing. Prose fiction was developed in Ancient Greece , influenced by the storytelling traditions of Asia and Egypt. Distinctly fictional work was not recognized as separate from historical or mythological stories until
5329-614: Was published in 1966. Notable among his many other novels are Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things , Blue Pastoral , and Mulligan Stew . The latter novel, a humorous postmodern romp, riffs on the metafictional possibilities introduced in Flann O'Brien 's novel At Swim-Two-Birds , and is one of Sorrentino's most popular works. His 1999 novel, Gold Fools , is written entirely in interrogative sentences not, as critic Steven Moore says, "just to see if he could pull it off, but because he wanted to interrogate our cultural assumptions about
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