Literary Fiction
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A Literary Fiction is a fiction that do not fit neatly into an established character-driven fiction examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art.
- Example(s):
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- See: Human Condition, Slipstream Genre, Bedford, Encyclopedia Britannica, Genre Fiction, Literature, Art, Science Fiction, Crime Fiction, Romance Novel, Magic Realism.
References
2023
- (Wikipedia, 2023) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_fiction Retrieved:2023-10-6.
- Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction, serious fiction, high literature, artistic literature,[1] and sometimes just literature[1] are labels that, in the book trade, refer to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre (see genre fiction); or, otherwise, refer to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art. [2] [3] Literary fiction is often used as a synonym for literature, in the exclusive sense of writings specifically considered to have considerable artistic merit. [4] While literary fiction is commonly regarded as artistically superior to genre fiction, the two are not mutually exclusive, and major literary figures have employed the genres of science fiction, crime fiction, romance, etc., to create works of literature. Furthermore, the study of genre fiction has developed within academia in recent decades.[5][6] [3]
Slipstream genre is sometimes located in between the genre and non-genre fictions.
- Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction, serious fiction, high literature, artistic literature,[1] and sometimes just literature[1] are labels that, in the book trade, refer to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre (see genre fiction); or, otherwise, refer to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art. [2] [3] Literary fiction is often used as a synonym for literature, in the exclusive sense of writings specifically considered to have considerable artistic merit. [4] While literary fiction is commonly regarded as artistically superior to genre fiction, the two are not mutually exclusive, and major literary figures have employed the genres of science fiction, crime fiction, romance, etc., to create works of literature. Furthermore, the study of genre fiction has developed within academia in recent decades.[5][6] [3]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named:2 - ↑ A Beginner's Guide to Literary Fiction|NY Book Editors
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named:1 - ↑ "written work valued for superior or lasting artistic merit". ("Literature", OED).
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named:02 - ↑ Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, "Popular Fiction Studies: The Advantages of a New Field". Studies in Popular Culture, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Fall 2010), pp. 21–3
1993
- David Foster Wallace. (1993). “A Conversation with David Foster Wallace By Larry McCaffery." from “The Review of Contemporary Fiction,” Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2
- QUOTE: DFW: I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction’s job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves. Since an ineluctable part of being a human self is suffering, part of what we humans come to art for is an experience of suffering, necessarily a vicarious experience, more like a sort of “generalization” of suffering. Does this make sense? We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple. But now realize that TV and popular film and most kinds of “low” art — which just means art whose primary aim is to make money — is lucrative precisely because it recognizes that audiences prefer 100 percent pleasure to the reality that tends to be 49 percent pleasure and 51 percent pain. Whereas “serious” art, which is not primarily about getting money out of you, is more apt to make you uncomfortable, or to force you to work hard to access its pleasures, the same way that in real life true pleasure is usually a by-product of hard work and discomfort. So it’s hard for an art audience, especially a young one that’s been raised to expect art to be 100 percent pleasurable and to make that pleasure effortless, to read and appreciate serious fiction. That’s not good. The problem isn’t that today’s readership is “dumb,” I don’t think. Just that TV and the commercial-art culture’s trained it to be sort of lazy and childish in its expectations. But it makes trying to engage today’s readers both imaginatively and intellectually unprecedentedly hard.