literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

, the term fabulation was popularized by

Robert Scholes Robert E. Scholes (1929 – December 9, 2016) was an American literary critic and theorist. He is known for his ideas on fabulation and metafiction. Education and career Robert Scholes was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929. After taking hi ...

, in his work ''The Fabulators'', to describe the large and growing class of mostly 20th century

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s that are in a style similar to

magical realism Magical is the adjective for magic. It may also refer to: * Magical (horse) (foaled 2015), Irish Thoroughbred racehorse * "Magical" (song), released in 1985 by John Parr * '' Magical: Disney's New Nighttime Spectacular of Magical Celebrations'', ...

, and do not fit into the traditional categories of

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

or (novelistic)

romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

. They violate, in a variety of ways, standard novelistic expectations by drastic—and sometimes highly successful—experiments with subject matter, form, style, temporal sequence, and fusions of the everyday, fantastic, mythical, and nightmarish, in renderings that blur traditional distinctions between what is serious or trivial, horrible or ludicrous, tragic or comic.M.H Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, p 204 To a large extent, fabulism and

postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...

coincide;

John Barth John Simmons Barth (; born May 27, 1930) is an American writer who is best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include ''The Sot-Weed Factor'', a ...

, for example, was labeled a fabulist until the term "postmodernism" was coined.

References

Further reading