Metafictional Video Games
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Metafictional Video Games
Metafiction 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 storytelling, 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 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 the Nine'' ( Kim Man-jung, 1687), '' The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Ge ...
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Fiction
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with fact, history, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, fiction refers to literature, written narratives in prose often specifically novels, novellas, and short story, short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any Media (communication), medium, including not just writings but also drama, live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition and theory Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly expressed, so the audience expects a work of fiction to deviate to a greater or lesser degree from the real world, rather than presenting for instance only factually accurate portrayals or character (arts ...
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Sartor Resartus
''Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books'' is a novel by the Scottish people, Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, first published as a serial in ''Fraser's Magazine'' in November 1833 – August 1834. The novel purports to be a commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (which translates as 'Zeus-born Devil's-dung'), author of a tome entitled ''Clothes: Their Origin and Influence''. Teufelsdröckh's Transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a sceptical English Reviewer (referred to as Editor) who also provides fragmentary biographical material on the philosopher. The work is a parody, in part of Hegel and more generally of German Idealism. Background Archibald MacMechan surmised that the novel's invention had three literary sources. The first of these was ''A Tale of a Tub'' by Jonathan Swift, whom Carlyle intensely admired in his college years, even going by the ...
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John Fowles
John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. After leaving Oxford University, Fowles taught English at a school on the Greek island of Spetses, a sojourn that inspired '' The Magus'' (1965), an instant best-seller that was directly in tune with 1960s "hippy" anarchism and experimental philosophy. This was followed by '' The French Lieutenant's Woman'' (1969), a Victorian-era romance with a postmodern twist that was set in Lyme Regis, Dorset, where Fowles lived for much of his life. Later fictional works include '' The Ebony Tower'' (1974), '' Daniel Martin'' (1977), '' Mantissa'' (1982), and '' A Maggot'' (1985). Fowles's books have been translated into many languages, and several have been adapted as films. Early life Birth and family Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, England, the only son a ...
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The French Lieutenant's Woman
''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' is a 1969 Postmodern literature, 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 independent woman with whom he falls in love. The novel builds on Fowles's authority in Victorian literature, both following and critiquing many of the conventions of period novels.Warburton 166. The book was the author's third, after ''The Collector'' (1963), and ''The Magus (novel), The Magus'' (1965). ''American Libraries'' magazine counted the novel among the "Notable Books of 1969". Subsequent to its initial popularity, publishers produced numerous editions and translated the novel into many languages; soon after the initial publication, the novel was also treated extensively by scholars. The novel remains popular, figuring in both public and academic conversations. In 2005 Time (magazine), ''Time'' chose the book as ...
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The Explicator
''The Explicator'' is a peer-reviewed, quarterly journal of literary criticism. It began publication in October 1942 and is now both printed and available in an electronic version. Routledge acquired the journal from Heldref Publications in 2009, and now it is owned by Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research and Dovepress. It i .... Issues often include between 25 and 30 articles on works of literature, "ranging from ancient Greek and Roman times to our own, from throughout the world." According to a library guide, "As the title of the journal suggests, the focus is on explication, or close readings, of the works. As such, the articles tend to use less jargon and are easier to understand than some other articles in literature studies." Editor-in-Chief Leonard Neidorf, ''Shenz ...
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Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut ( ; November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his Satire, satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works over fifty-plus years; further works have been published since his death. Born and raised in Indianapolis, Vonnegut attended Cornell University, but withdrew in January 1943 and enlisted in the United States Army, U.S. Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at the Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was prisoner of war, interned in Dresden, where he survived the Bombing of Dresden in World War II, Allied bombing of the city in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. After the war, he married Jane Marie Cox ...
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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 experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant during World War II, to the post-war years. Throughout the novel, Billy frequently travels back and forth through time. The protagonist deals with a temporal crisis as a result of his post-war psychological trauma. The text centers on Billy's capture by the German Army and his survival of the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, an experience that Vonnegut endured as an American serviceman. The work has been called an example of "unmatched moral clarity"Powers, Kevin"The Moral Clarity of ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ at 50" The New York Times, March 23, 2019, ''Sunday Book Review'', p. 13. and "one of the most enduring anti-war novels of all time". Plot The novel's first cha ...
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Robert Coover
Robert Lowell Coover (February 4, 1932 – October 5, 2024) was an American novelist, Short story, 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. He became a proponent of electronic literature and was a founder of the Electronic Literature Organization. Background Coover was born in Charles City, Iowa. He attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale, received his B.A. in Slavic Studies from Indiana University Bloomington in 1953, then served in the United States Navy from 1953 to 1957, where he became a lieutenant. He received an M.A. in General Studies in the Humanities from the University of Chicago in 1965. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. Coover served as a teacher or writer in residence at many universities. He taught at Brown University from 1981 to 2012. ...
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Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife, Véra Nabokov. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Trilingual in Russian, English, and French, Nabokov became a U.S. citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland. From 1948 to 1959, Nabokov was a professor of Russian literature at Cornell University. His 1955 novel ''Lolita'' ranked fourth on Modern Library's list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, 100 best 20th-century novels in 1998 and is considered one of the greatest works of 20th-century literature. Nabokov's ''Pale Fire'', published in 1962, ranked 5 ...
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Pale Fire
''Pale Fire'' is a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword, lengthy commentary and index written by Shade's neighbor and academic colleague, Charles Kinbote. Together these elements form a narrative in which both fictional authors are central characters. Nabokov wrote ''Pale Fire'' in 1960–61, after the success of '' Lolita'' had made him financially independent, allowing him to retire from teaching and return to Europe. Nabokov began writing the novel in Nice and completed it in Montreux, Switzerland. ''Pale Fire'''s unusual structure has attracted much attention, and it is often cited as an important example of metafiction, as well as an analog precursor to hypertext fiction, and a poioumenon. It has spawned a wide variety of interpretations and a large body of written criticism, which literary scholar estimated in 1995 as more than 80 studies. The Nabokov auth ...
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John Barth
John Simmons Barth (; May 27, 1930 – April 2, 2024) was an American writer 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 whimsical retelling of Maryland's colonial history; '' Giles Goat-Boy'', a satirical fantasy in which a university is a microcosm of the Cold War world; and '' Lost in the Funhouse'', a self-referential and experimental collection of short stories. He was co-recipient of the National Book Award in 1973 for his episodic novel '' Chimera''. Life John Barth, called "Jack", was born in Cambridge, Maryland, on May 27, 1930. He had an older brother, Bill, and a twin sister, Jill. In 1947, he graduated from Cambridge High School, where he played drums and wrote for the school newspaper. He briefly studied "Elementary Theory and Advanced Orchestration" at the Juilliard School before attending Johns Hopkins University, where he received a ...
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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 on his long novels, the stories "Night-Sea Journey", "Lost in the Funhouse", "Title" and "Life-Story" from ''Lost in the Funhouse'' are widely anthologized. The book appeared the year after the publication of his essay '' The Literature of Exhaustion'', in which Barth said that the traditional modes of realistic fiction had been used up, but that this exhaustion itself could be used to inspire a new generation of writers, citing Nabokov, Beckett, and especially Borges as exemplars of this new approach. ''Lost in the Funhouse'' took these ideas to an extreme, for which it was both praised and condemned by critics. Overview Each story can be considered complete in itself, and in fact several of them were published separately before be ...
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