Metafiction

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Metafiction ( Greek μετά meta 'after', 'afterwards' and Latin fictio 'design', 'fiction') is a type of fiction in literature in which a work consciously addresses its own fictional character. Metafictional are self-reflective statements and elements, especially of narratives, which do not aim at content as apparent reality, but rather make the reader or recipient aware of the textuality or fictionality of the work in the sense of "artificiality", "made" or "inventedness" and related phenomena do.

The term metafiction, which has been in use since R. Scholes (1970), has largely replaced the older and at the same time narrower terms “self-conscious narration” and “fictional irony”. It is mostly limited to fictional narration, but occasionally also used in connection with drama (see J. Schlueter 1979). Metatextual phenomena in non-fictional narration are sometimes also referred to as occurrences of “metanarration”, unless G. Genette's terminology of “metanarratives” and “ metadiégetic ” (1972) is exclusively related to “ embedded stories ”.

Accordingly, metafictionality stands in contrast to literary works that try to make the reader forget the fictionality of the work. It usually involves irony and is self-reflective. In some ways it can be compared to epic theater ; this does not make the audience forget that they are seeing a play, just as metafiction does not make the reader forget that they are reading a fictional work. The term goes back to the American writer William H. Gass , who first mentioned it in his essay Philosophy and the Form of Fiction .

definition

It was only in the early 1980s that metafiction was occasionally addressed in literary studies. Patricia Waugh published the first complete account of metafictional literature and thus established the term. It defines a metafictional narrative as follows: "the construction of a fictional illusion (as in traditional realism) and the laying bare of that illusion" In such cases, it is about literature that consciously reveals its own illusionary character. For Waugh it is also important that the metafictional narrative not only reflects the nature of fiction, but also points out the construction of reality in the sense of constructivism . So the question of the relationship between art and reality is always asked. It essentially distinguishes between two forms of metafictional literature:

1. self-conscious literature : the author reflects on the construction of his own novel or refers to other works of himself.

2. Reflection on another text: In the sense of intertextuality , reference is made to another work in order to show that literature itself is in turn created from literature.

Another standard work in which metafiction is defined as fiction about fiction, that is, as a thematization of literature in literature, comes from Linda Hutcheon. Hutcheon also roughly distinguishes between two levels, which she differentiates into diegetic and linguistic metafiction. In diegetic metafiction, the reader is addressed directly or a literary genre is parodied; in linguistic metafiction, on the linguistic level, e.g. B. through word games, also references to the construction of language.

Examples

Metafiction is primarily associated with postmodern literature , but can already be found in works such as Cervantes ' Don Quixote and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales . The work of Jorge Luis Borges was groundbreaking for the popularization of metafiction . Authors such as John Barth , Robert Coover , William H. Gass and Vladimir Nabokov followed in the early 1960s . Classic examples of the time include Barth's Lost in the Funhouse , Coovers The Babysitter, and The Magic Poker, and Gass' Willie Master's Lonesome Wife .

A more recent example from German-language literature is the so-called Mythenmetzsche digression in Walter Moers ' novel Ensel and Krete (2000). The novel Die Kluft (2007) by Doris Lessing combines several metafictional tricks, insofar as this work portrays a first-person narrator who, in the role of a historian, comments on what he does and how he pretends to tell an origin myth.

Some common tricks of metafiction are:

  • A novel about someone who writes a novel.
  • A novel about someone who reads a novel.
  • A story that deals with the special customs of stories, such as the title, construction of the paragraphs or the plot.
  • A non-linear novel that can be read in a different order than from beginning to end.
  • Narrative footnotes that continue the story as they comment on it.
  • A novel in which the author is one of the characters.
  • A story that anticipates the reader's reaction to the story.
  • Characters who do things because they would expect other characters in a story to take these actions.
  • Characters who express awareness that they are part of a fictional work.
  • The mise en abyme .

Metafiction can either play a role in a story for a brief moment, for example when “Roger” appears in Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber or Frodo Baggins is portrayed as the main author of The Lord of the Rings , or it can be the central theme of the work, such as in Life and Views of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman of Laurence Sterne, or in On Swimming Two Birds by Flann O'Brien . In addition, the texts can be distinguished in terms of whether there is a real world outside the text or not. At Jorge Luis Borges z. B. this remains doubtful.

A variety that has been very popular since the 1960s is historiographical metafiction , for which an adaptation of the historical novel with metafictional means is characteristic.

Literary studies refer to authors as metafictional writers when their oeuvre is dominated by metafictional elements. Examples are John Irving , Italo Calvino or Walter Moers .

Metafiction in Drama

In addition to novels, there are examples of self-referentiality in dramatic literature, e.g. B. Woody Allen's one-act play God (God) . The cross-genre character is also the basis of Waugh's (1984: 5) thesis:

"[...] although the term 'metafiction' might be new, the practice is as old (if not older) than the novel itself."

Metafiction in the film

Metafiction is found not only in fiction, but also in film or television scripts, e.g. B. in movies like Charlie Kaufman's adaptation. or in TV series like Scrubs - The Beginners , if there other series are explicitly characterized as fiction. Other films in which metafiction is used are Ferris makes blue , the TV series Malcolm in the middle or - on trains - the series Boston Legal . In the works of David Lynch , especially in Inland Empire , the direct theming of the film production reveals a kind of metafiction, as the made-up of the film is revealed through the complex, interlinked, metafictional nesting of the plot and its characters.

Because of the intertextual references that are transparent for the viewer, metafiction is also an inherent characteristic of parody and, in a weakened form, also of homage or satire . Recently, especially newer animation series for adults such as Family Guy , South Park or American Dad show a high degree of metafictive elements, self-referentiality and self-reflection, in-context thematization of film clichés and an awareness of one's own medium and its laws.

Metafiction in comics

Metafictive elements can also be found in some comics . In Japanese mangaka such as Osamu Tezuka , for example , metafictive self-reference plays a central role in the work. His work is shaped by a complex system of characters. For example, the well-known character of the robot Astro Boy can be found in several comics outside of the series in a different role, so he can be seen in Black Jack as a normal boy. Alluding to the practice of classic Hollywood cinema of building up selected actors as stars for a specific role, he called this the star system . Especially in his early work, Tezuka plays with the properties of his medium by letting his characters break through the panels or occasionally letting his characters be aware that they are comic characters. He also appears in his own comics; either as a fictionalized version of yourself or as part of the star system.

Metafiction in music

Eminem is considered a metafictional musician because of his permanent role changes. Also in the song I love you by the group JBO a metafictional procedure is used when suddenly one of the guitarists stops playing his instrument and a game of table tennis begins.

Functions of metafictionality

Metafiction has a variety of functions that cannot be limited to undermining and overriding the meaningfulness or credibility of what is being told and, despite the often rational-distancing effect, cannot be understood solely as a breach of illusion. Metafiction can also create poetological spaces for reflection or offer aesthetic self-or third-party comments or provide aids to understanding, for example in the case of innovative works. In the same way, metafiction can help to celebrate the story or the narrator, or also contribute to playfully exploring the possibilities of the literary medium.

literature

  • J. Alexander Bareis, Frank Thomas Grub (Ed.): Metafiction. Analyzes of contemporary German literature . Kulturverlag Kadmos , Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86599-102-7 .
  • Hartmut Braun: Literature as a distorting mirror. Metafiction in the novels of John Irving. Osnabrück 2004.
  • Mark Currie (Ed.): Metafiction. New York 1995.
  • Dirk Frank: Narrative mind games. The metafictional novel between modernism and postmodernism. Wiesbaden 2001
  • Linda Hutcheon: Narcissistic Narrative. The Metafictional Paradox. London: Methuen 1980, reprints: 1985, 1991, ISBN 0-415-06567-4
  • David Lodge : The Novelist at the Crossroads and other essays on fiction and criticism. London 1971
  • Sonja Klimek: Who is speaking? - Metafiction as a 'double mimesis' in Wolfram Fleischhauer's campus novel 'The Stolen Evening' . In: J. Alexander Bareis, Frank Thomas Grub (Ed.): Metafiktion. Analyzes of contemporary German literature . Kulturverlag Kadmos , Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86599-102-7 , pp. 61–86.
  • Ilona Mader: Metafictional elements in Walter Moers' Zamonien novels. Marburg 2012.
  • Ilona Mader: Metafictionality as self-deconstruction . Würzburg 2017. ISBN 978-3-8260-6021-2 .
  • Ansgar Nünning : From historical fiction to historiographical metafiction. WVT, Trier 1995.
    • Volume 1: Theory, Typology and Poetics of the Historical Novel. ISBN 3-88476-166-8 .
    • Volume 2: Forms and tendencies of the historical novel in England since 1950. ISBN 3-88476-168-4 .
  • Christian Schuldt: Self-observation and the evolution of the art system. Literary studies on Laurence Sternes “Tristram Shandy” and the early novels of Flann O'Brien. Transcript, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-89942-402-6 .
  • Sylvia Setzkorn: Tell about storytelling. Metafiction in contemporary French and Italian novels. Stauffenburg-Verlag, Tübingen 2000, ISBN 3-86057-676-3 .
  • Patricia Waugh: Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-conscious Fiction. Routledge, 1988, ISBN 0-415-03006-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Werner Wolf: Metafiktion . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 172-174, here pp. 172f.
  2. ↑ Cf. Werner Wolf: Metafiktion . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 172-174, here pp. 172f.
  3. ↑ See Bernd Engler ( Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen ): Metafiction [1] . On: The Literary Encyclopedia . Retrieved March 18, 2014.
  4. ↑ Patricia Waugh: Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. New York / London: Methuen, 1984, p. 6.
  5. ↑ Linda Hutcheon: Narcissistic Narrative. The Metafictional Paradox. London: Methuen 1980.
  6. ↑ Gerrit Lembke (ed.): Walter Moers' Zamonien-Romane. Surveying a fictional continent , V&R Unipress 2011, ISBN 978-3-89971-677-1
  7. ↑ Patricia Waugh: Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. New York / London: Methuen, 1984.
  8. ↑ Monta Alaine: Surreal storytelling by David Lynch. Narratology, Narratography and Intermediality in Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire . ibidem, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-8382-0583-0 . . See also Robert Sinnerbrink: New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images , Continuum International Publishing Group, New York 2011, ISBN 978-1441-1534-32 , p. 154.
  9. ↑ http://tezukaosamu.net/en/character/star_system.html last accessed on March 4, 2013
  10. ↑ Cf. Werner Wolf: Metafiktion . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 172–174, here p. 173.