Metafiction is a form of
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 traditi ...
which emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually 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 the relationship between literature and reality, life, and art.
Although metafiction is most commonly associated with
postmodern literature
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narrator, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This sty ...
that developed in the mid-20th century, its use can be traced back to much earlier works of fiction, such as ''
The Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''Masterpiece, ...
'' (
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...
, 1387), ''
Don Quixote
is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Wester ...
'' (
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...
, 1605), ''
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', also known as ''Tristram Shandy'', is a novel by Laurence Sterne, inspired by ''Don Quixote''. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others followin ...
'' (
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', published ...
, 1759), and ''
Vanity Fair'' (
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray (; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel ''Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portrait of British society, and t ...
, 1847).
Metafiction became particularly prominent in the 1960s, with works such as ''
Lost in the Funhouse
''Lost in the Funhouse'' (1968) is a short story collection by American author John Barth. The postmodern stories are extremely self-conscious and self-reflexive and are considered to exemplify metafiction.
Though Barth's reputation rests mainly ...
'' by
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 ...
, "The Babysitter" and "The Magic Poker" by
Robert Coover
Robert Lowell Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American novelist, short story writer, and T.B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction.
Background
...
, ''
Slaughterhouse-Five
''Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death'' is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut. It follows the life and experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to h ...
'' by
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...
,
[Jensen, Mikkel (2016)]
Janus-Headed Postmodernism: The Opening Lines of ''Slaughterhouse-Five''
in ''The Explicator
''The Explicator'' is a quarterly journal of literary criticism. Current owner Routledge acquired the journal from Heldref Publications in 2009. It mainly publishes short papers on poetry and prose. It is indexed in the Arts & Humanities Citati ...
'', 74:1, 8-11. ''
The French Lieutenant's Woman
''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' is a 1969 postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles. The plot explores the fraught relationship of gentleman and amateur naturalist Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, the former governess and indep ...
'' by
John Fowles
John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others.
Aft ...
, ''
The Crying of Lot 49
''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-ol ...
'' by
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...
, and ''Willie Master's Lonesome Wife'' by
William H. Gass
William Howard Gass (July 30, 1924 – December 6, 2017) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and philosophy professor. He wrote three novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven vol ...
.
Since the 1980s, contemporary Latino literature has an abundance of self-reflexive, metafictional works, including novels and short stories by
Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz (; born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and was fiction editor at ''Boston Review''. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedo ...
(''
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
''The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao'' is a 2007 novel written by Dominican American author Junot Díaz. Although a work of fiction, the novel is set in New Jersey in the United States, where Díaz was raised, and it deals with the Dominican ...
''),
Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel, ''The House on Mango Street'' (1983), and her subsequent short story collection, '' Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories'' (1991). Her work e ...
(''
Caramelo
''Caramelo'' is a 2002 epic novel spanning a hundred years of Mexican History by American author Sandra Cisneros. It was inspired by her Mexican heritage and childhood in the barrio of Chicago, Illinois. The main character, Lala, is the only gir ...
''),
Salvador Plascencia
Salvador, meaning "salvation" (or "saviour") in Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese may refer to:
* Salvador (name)
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
*Salvador (band), a Christian band that plays both English and Spanish music
** ''Salvador'' (S ...
(''
The People of Paper
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
''),
Carmen Maria Machado (''
Her Body''),
Rita Indiana
Rita may refer to:
People
* Rita (given name)
* Rita (Indian singer) (born 1984)
* Rita (Israeli singer) (born 1962)
* Rita (Japanese singer)
* Eliza Humphreys (1850–1938), wrote under the pseudonym Rita
Places
* Djarrit, also known as Rita, ...
(''Tentacle''), and
Valeria Luiselli
Valeria Luiselli (born August 16, 1983) is a Mexican author living in the United States. She is the author of the book of essays ''Sidewalks'' and the novel '' Faces in the Crowd'', which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First F ...
(''
Lost Children Archive'').
History of the term
The term 'metafiction' was coined in 1970 by
William H. Gass
William Howard Gass (July 30, 1924 – December 6, 2017) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and philosophy professor. He wrote three novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven vol ...
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 an increased self-reflexivity and formal uncertainty.
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 ...
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 the fictional process, putting emphasis on one or more of these aspects.
These developments were part of a larger movement (arguably a 'metareferential turn') which, approximately from the 1960s onwards, was the consequence of an increasing social and cultural self-consciousness, stemming from, as
Patricia Waugh
Professor Patricia Waugh (born 25 April 1956) is a literary critic, intellectual historian and Professor of English Literature at Durham University. She is a leading specialist in modernist and post-modernist literature, feminist theory, int ...
puts it, "a more general cultural interest in the problem of how human beings reflect, construct and mediate their experience in 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 a model for the construction of 'reality' rather than a reflection of it. Reality itself became regarded as a construct instead of an 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 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 The ''death of the novel'' is the common name for the theoretical discussion of the declining importance of the novel as literary form. Many 20th century authors entered into the debate, often sharing their ideas in their own fiction and non-ficti ...
'. Others see the self-consciousness of fictional writing as a way to gain 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
Linda Hutcheon, FRSC, O.C. (born August 24, 1947) is a Canadian academic working in the fields of literary theory and criticism, opera, and Canadian studies. She is a University Professor Emeritus in the Department of English and of the Centre ...
.
Video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s also started to draw on concepts of metafiction particularly with the rise of
independent video games
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...
in the 2010s. Games like ''
The Magic Circle'', ''
The Beginner's Guide
''The Beginner's Guide'' is an interactive storytelling video game created by Davey Wreden under the studio name Everything Unlimited Ltd. The game was released for Linux, OS X, and Windows on October 1, 2015. The game is Wreden's follow-up to t ...
'', ''
Undertale
''Undertale'' is a 2015 2D role-playing video game created by American indie developer Toby Fox. The player controls a child who has fallen into the Underground: a large, secluded region under the surface of the Earth, separated by a magical ...
'', and ''
Pony Island
''Pony Island'' is a video game developed and published by Canadian indie developer Daniel Mullins. As a metafictional game, the game has the player interact with what appears to be an old arcade cabinet game called "''Pony Island''". The playe ...
'' use various techniques as to have the player question the bounds between the fiction of the video game and the reality of them playing the game.
Forms
According to Werner Wolf, metafiction can be differentiated into four pairs of forms that can be combined with each other.
Explicit/implicit metafiction
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 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
Metalepsis (from grc-gre, μετάληψις) is a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase from figurative speech is used in a new context.
Examples
*"I've got to catch the worm tomorrow."
**"The early bird catches the worm" is a common m ...
. It relies more than other forms of metafiction on the reader's ability to recognize these devices in order to evoke a metafictional reading. Implicit metafiction is described as a mode of showing.
Direct/indirect metafiction
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 aesthetic issue. Since there is always 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/non-critical metafiction
Critical metafiction aims to find the artificiality or fictionality of a text in some critical way, which is frequently done in
postmodernist
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...
fiction. Non-critical metafiction does not criticize or undermine the artificiality or fictionality of a text and can, for example, be used to "suggest that the story one is reading is authentic".
Generally media-centred/truth- or fiction-centred metafiction
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 inventedness (fictionality) of a text, which merits mention as a specific form. The suggestion of a story being authentic (a device frequently used in
realistic fiction) would be an example of (non-critical) truth-centred metafiction.
Examples
Laurence Sterne, ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman''
In this scene
Tristram Shandy Tristram may refer to:
Literature
* the title character of ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', a novel by Laurence Sterne
* the title character of ''Tristram of Lyonesse'', an epic poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
*"Tristra ...
, 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 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 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.
David Lodge, ''The British Museum is Falling Down''
This scene from ''
The British Museum is Falling Down'' (1965) features several instances of metafiction. First, the speaker, Adam Appleby (the protagonist of the novel) discusses the change the rise of the novel brought upon the literary landscape, specifically with regards to thematic changes that occurred. Second, he talks about the
mimetic
Mimesis (; grc, μίμησις, ''mīmēsis'') is a term used in literary criticism and philosophy that carries a wide range of meanings, including '' imitatio'', imitation, nonsensuous similarity, receptivity, representation, mimicry, the ...
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 The ''death of the novel'' is the common name for the theoretical discussion of the declining importance of the novel as literary form. Many 20th century authors entered into the debate, often sharing their ideas in their own fiction and non-ficti ...
(all of this is explicit, critical indirect metafiction). Fourth, he covertly foregrounds that 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 the fictionality of the characters and thus of the novel itself (which could be classified as critical, direct, fiction-centred metafiction).
Jasper Fforde, ''The Eyre Affair''
''
The Eyre Affair
''The Eyre Affair'' is the debut novel by English author Jasper Fforde, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2001. It takes place in an alternative 1985, where literary detective Thursday Next pursues a master criminal through the world of Char ...
'' (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
Thursday Next is the protagonist in a series of comic fantasy, alternate history mystery novels by the British author Jasper Fforde. She was first introduced in Fforde's first published novel, '' The Eyre Affair'', released on 19 July 2001 by ...
chases a criminal through the world of
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature.
She enlisted i ...
's ''
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
''. This paradoxical transgression of narrative boundaries is called
metalepsis
Metalepsis (from grc-gre, μετάληψις) is a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase from figurative speech is used in a new context.
Examples
*"I've got to catch the worm tomorrow."
**"The early bird catches the worm" is a common m ...
, an implicitly metafictional device when used in literature. Metalepsis has a high inherent potential to disrupt
aesthetic illusion
Aesthetic illusion is a type of mental absorption which describes a generally pleasurable cognitive state that is frequently triggered by various media or other artifacts. Recipients can be drawn into a represented world imaginatively, emotiona ...
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 aesthetic illusion.
See also
*
List of metafictional works
This is a partial list of works that use metafictional ideas. Metafiction is intentional allusion or reference to a work's fictional nature. It is commonly used for humorous or parodic effect, and has appeared in a wide range of mediums, includin ...
*
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...
*
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 ...
References
Further reading
* Currie, Mark (ed.). ''Metafiction'', Longman, 1995.
*Dean, Andrew. ''Metafiction and the Postwar Novel: Foes, Ghosts, and Faces in the Water'', Oxford University Press, 2021.
*Gass, William H., ''Fiction and the Figures of Life'', Alfred A. Knopf, 1970
* Heginbotham, Thomas "The Art of Artifice: Barth, Barthelme and the metafictional tradition" (2009
PDF*
Hutcheon, Linda, ''Narcissistic Narrative. The Metafictional Paradox'', Routledge 1984, {{ISBN, 0-415-06567-4.
*Hutcheon, Linda. ''A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction'', Routledge, 1988, ISBN 0-415-00705-4.
* Levinson, Julie, "Adaptation, Metafiction, Self-Creation," ''Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture''. Spring 2007, vol. 40: 1.
* The Metafiction Database
*Scholes, Robert, ''Fabulation and Metafiction,'' University of Illinois Press 1979.
*Waugh, Patricia, ''Metafiction – The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction,'' Routledge 1984.
*Werner Wolf, ed., in collaboration with Katharina Bantleon, and Jeff Thoss. ''Metareference across Media: Theory and Case Studies. Studies in Intermediality 4,'' Rodopi 2009.
*Werner Wolf, ed., in collaboration with Katharina Bantleon and Jeff Thoss. ''The Metareferential Turn in Contemporary Arts and Media: Forms, Functions, Attempts at Explanation. Studies in Intermediality 5,'' Rodopi 2011.
Metafiction,
Concepts in aesthetics
Concepts in epistemology
Literary concepts
Literature about literature
Metafictional techniques
Narratology
Philosophical theories