Fictionalizing
The Anthropological Dimension of Literary Fictions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4271053 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wolfgang Iser (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 939 |
| Publication date | 1990-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New Literary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0028-6087 • E-ISSN: 1080-661X |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/469193 |
| OpenAlex | W2331944078 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
MOST PEOPLE would associate term fiction with storytelling branch of literature, but in its other guise it is what Dr. Johnson called falsehood; a lye.' The equivocalness of word is very revealing, for each meaning sheds light on other. Both meanings entail similar processes, which we might term what is: lie oversteps truth, and literary work oversteps real world which it incorporates. It is therefore not surprising that literary fictions would so often have been branded as lies, since they talk of that which does not exist, even though they present its nonreality as if it did exist. Plato's complaint that poets lie met its first strong opposition in Renaissance, when Sir Philip Sidney rejoined that the Poet . . nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth, as he does not talk of what is, but of what ought to be,2 and this form of overstepping is quite different from lying. Fiction and fictionalizing entail a duality, and nature of this doubleness will depend upon context: lies and literature are different end products of process of doubling, and each oversteps boundaries of its contextual reality in its own way. Inasmuch as this duality precedes its forms of realization, boundary-crossing may be viewed as hallmark of fictionalizing. The liar must conceal truth, but so truth is potentially present in mask which disguises it. In literary fictions, existing worlds are overstepped, and although they are individually still recognizable, they are set in a context that defamiliarizes them. Thus both lie and literature always contain two worlds: lie incorporates truth and purpose for which truth must be concealed; literary fictions incorporate an identifiable reality, subjected to an unforeseeable refashioning. And so when we describe fictionalizing as an act of overstepping, we must bear in mind that reality overstepped is not left behind: it remains present, thereby imbuing fiction with a duality that may be exploited for different purposes. In what is to follow, we shall focus on fictionalizing as a means of actualizing possible in order to address question
Art · Dimension (graph theory) · Literary criticism · Literature · Pure mathematics · Mathematics · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Philosophy
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| Citations per year | 0.27 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1993 - 2025 (33) |
| Highly cited | No |