He is the narrator in the novel but at the same time a writer of his autobiography, and throughout his narration he continually reminds the reader of the fictional nature of the story he is telling by means of his self-reflexive remarks. And the inclusion of historical novels and personages in the novel’s metafictional context implies their fictionality and problematizes them as well. Furthermore, the role of the reader in a metafictional context, as Hutcheon argues, is no longer of a passive receiver, but that of an active participant in the writing process: “The reader’s task becomes increasingly difficult and demanding, as he sorts out the various narrative threads. The universe he thus creates, he must then acknowledge as fictional and of his own making”(1980:49)
Of particular importance to the present study is Ricoeur's formulation of an "offshoot issuing from the blending of history and fiction": narrative identity (1988, 3:246). Ricoeur argued that only narrative can account for the assigning of a everlasting proper name to an agent or subject, permanent from a subject's birth to death (1988, 3:246). Ricoeur claimed that one must tell a tale of a life in order to answer the question "Who...?" Therefore, the identity of this "who" must be a narrated identity (1988, 3:246). Ricoeur went far away as to say that, "Without the recourse to narration, the problem of individual identity would in fact be condemned to an antinomy with no solution" (1988, 3:246).
In her book, A Poetics of Postmodernism, Linda Hutcheon sees postmodernism, when used in fiction, to describe fiction that is metafictional and historical at the same time by presenting the texts and contexts of the past (Hutcheon, 40). This is what she calls historiographic metafiction. Most of the historiographic novels emphasize self-reflexivity and our paradoxical relations of past events. Historiographic metafiction somehow acknowledges the paradox of the past, that is to say, the past that is accessible to us today only in the form of text. As Fredric Jameson reminds us, “history is not a text, but it is only accessible in textual form (Homer, w8, slide 4)”.
Just like Boges, he alludes to other texts and stories in his novel. His novel is a story about other stories. For instance, the story of “Death and the compass” is found in the text. Both William of Baskerville and Erik Lonnrot are searching for a book on the shelves of vast and grand library. William is looking for Aristotle’s Poetics and the man in “Death and the Compass” is looking for a book which speaks of other books.
Eagleton’s definition includes the aspect of poetry being fictional. Fiction is literature that does not have authenticity and is fictitious. The definition he gives, states that a poem must be from a figment of one’s imagination. The fabricated content of poetry is not what is important. The important part of poetry being fictional, is that it still has moral truth.
In his famous essay, The Death of the Author, Roland Barthes examines the relationship between an author and their work. He argues that the reader determines the meaning of a text, and that meaning is generated in an active reading process, rather than the reader finding a hidden meaning from the author that was within the text to begin with. Barthes describes the writer as a “scriptor” or someone who writes simply to engage in the act of writing, but not in the creation of meaning (52). For Barthes, the meaning of the text is constructed through the performance of language, an active process of reading and creating meaning. This approach to literature focuses on the text rather than the Author, allowing for a more open interpretation of a
The present paper concentrates on the portrayal of post modern myth in John Barth’s Chimera. It aims to exhibit how the writer recycled myth in his creation through the reconstruction of this concept, consisting importantly in demythologization, revealing its central ridiculous situation and literary reprocessing. In order to understand the multi facet application of myths in Chimera, the article analyzes the subject from different aspects. Subsequently offering some preliminary remarks concerning the traditional history and meaning of myth, the first part of the article turns on to tracing Barth’s partiality as well as argumentative with distinct philosophical views and literary theories as far as the sort of myth is discussed. The second
It may happen that a reader may place it in familiarity with non fictional forms like biography or history as it is a narration of the factual incidents of author’s life. While on the other side a reader may relate it with fiction. This is called a perplexing nature of autobiography which becomes its inbuilt quality as a genre. Autobiography falls on the border line between the fact and fiction rather than
Historical criticism strives to cognize a literary work by examining the social, cultural, and intellectual context that essentially includes the artist’s biography and milieu. Historical critics are more concerned with guiding readers through the use of identical connotation rather than analyzing the work’s literary significance. (Brizee and Tompkins). The journey of a historical reading begins with the assessment of how the meaning of a text has altered over time. In many cases, when the historical context of a text is not fully comprehended, the work literature cannot be accurately interpreted.
WESSEX AND MALGUDI: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THOMAS HARDY AND R.K.NARAYAN AS REGIONAL NOVELISTS A novel is a fictional write up as per the thoughts of the author to describe the happenings of that particular period. It has no boundaries and much depends on the psychology of the readers. A novel may not have any introduction and can start up with a scenario and goes on its continuation. A novel owns its existence to a man’s interest in other men in the great panorama of human passion and action. The drama and the novel are compounded of the same element but drama the literary elements is bound with facts and logics.