Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction

by Patricia Waugh

Overview

Metafiction begins by surveying the state of contemporary fiction in Britain and America and explores the complex political, social and economic factors which influence critical judgment of fiction. The author shows how, as the novel has been eclipsed by the mass media, novelists have sought to retain and regain a wide readership by drawing on the themes and preoccupations of these forms. Making use of contemporary fiction by such writers as Fowles, Borges, Spark, Barthelme, Brautigan, Vonnegut and Barth, and drawing on Russian Formalist theories of literary evolution, the book argues that metafiction uses parody along with popular genres and non-literary forms as a way not only of exposing the inadequate and obsolescent conventions of the classic novel, but of stuggesting the lines along which fiction might develop in the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415030069
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/18/1984
Series:	New Accents
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	186
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x (d)

About the Author

Patricia Waugh

Table of Contents

General editor's preface. Acknowledgements. 1. What is metafiction and why are they saying such awful things about it? 2. Literary self-consciousness: developments 3. Literary evolution: the place of parody 4. Are novelists liars? The ontological status of literary-fictional discourse 5. Fictionality and context: from role-playing to language games Notes. Bibliography. Further reading.