Metafiction: Metafiction is the literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually using ironyand self-reflection. It can be compared to presentational theatre, which does not let the audience forget it is viewing a play; metafiction does not let the reader forget he or she is reading a fictional work. Metafiction is primarily associated with Modernist literatureand Postmodernist literature, but is found at least as early as Homers Odysseyand Chaucers 14th century Canterbury Tales. Cervantes Don Quixote, published in the 17th century, is a metafictional novel and so is James Hoggs The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinnerpublished in 1824. The novels of Brian ONolan, written under the nom de plumeFlann OBrien, are considered to be examples of metafiction. In the 1950s several French novelists published works whose styles were collectively dubbed nouveau roman. These new novels were characterized by the bending of genreand styleand often included elements of metafiction. It became prominent in the 1960s, with authors and works such as John Barths Lost in the Funhouse, Robert Coovers The Babysitter and The Magic Poker, Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse Five, Thomas Pynchons The Crying of Lot 49and William H. GasssWillie Masters Lonesome Wife. William H. Gasscoined the term “metafiction” in a 1970 essay entitled “Philosophy and the Form of Fiction”. Unlike the antinovel, or anti-fiction, metafiction is specifically fiction about fiction, i.e. fiction which self-consciously reflects upon itself.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 14:32:29 +0000
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