Fiction

1. 1. Latin “fictio” means to form or act of making or moulding.
   2. Fiction is any literary narrative, whether in prose or verse.
   3. I.A Richardson has held in his Science and Poetry (1926) that fiction is a form of emotive language composed of pseudostatements.
   4. In Speech-art Theory it is said that a writer of fiction only pretends to make assertions, or “imitates” the making of assertions, and so suspends the “normal illocutionary commitment” of the writer of such utterances to the claim that what he asserts is true.
   5. In literature means “literature in the form of prose, especially novels and short stories that describe imaginary events, situation and people.”
   6. Types of Fictions:

      1. Short Stories:

         1. Short stories always existed in the oral form from ancient time.
         2. With the invention of periodical and mass literacy of readers in 19th century short story developed.
         3. Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) is considered the father of the short stories. He perfected the technique of short story writing and mostly wrote suspense and horror series.
         4. Edgar Allan Poe said that a short story is a peace of writing that can be read in one sitting, of half an hour to two hours, containing 1,000 to 20,000 words and typically 25 to 30 pages.
         5. Another early short story writers were Herman Melville (1819-1891), O. Henry (1862-1910), Anton Chekhov. O Henry wrote around 300 short stories and his unique style was “surprise ending.”

      2. Novella

         1. shorter than novel and longer than short stories. Generally with one or two main character and takes place in a single location.
         2. Originated in Italy during middle ages. the Germans were the most active writers of novellas, structured them by precepts and rules and to be written in a realistic mode.
         3. Until late 18th and early 19th century the novella was not developed into a literary genre. In 19th and 20th centuries, a great number of Russian authors wrote novellas. Leo Tolstoy was one of them who wrote the Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote Notes from the Underground (1864)
         4. American authors in 19th century wrote a number of novellas. Henry James  wrote In the Cage, The Turn of the Screw.

      3. Novel

         1. The term for the novel in the most European languages is roman, which is derived from romance.
         2. The English name for the form is derived from Italian novella, literally, “a little new thing”, which is a short tale in prose. In 14th century Italy there were such tales, for example Boccaccio’s Decameron. Now novela means novellete, a middle length prose, for example Heart of Darkness by Conrad, Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
         3. Its magnitude permits a greater variety of characters, greater complication of plot ampler development of mileu, and more sustained exploration of character and motives than do the shorter, more concentrated modes.
         4. Contains over 50,000 words or 120 pages and may have any length
         5. May have more than one plot or storylines and many characters
         6. The early novels were Elizabethan prose fiction and French heroic romances about noble characters.
         7. Came into prominence at the end of 18th Century when growth of mass literacy, pace of middle class readers and money to buy books. It dominated the Victorian era (1837-1901).
         8. The early Victorian novels were concerned with complex, middle class characters strugling with their morality and circumstances.
         9. Pamela, a series of fictional letters written in 1741 by Samuel Richardson, is considered to be the first English novel.
         10. Early novels include Robinson Crusoe (1719), Mill Flanders (1722) by Daniel Defoe, although the characters are not well developed to be considered as full fledged novels.
         11. Early novelist Jane Austen is considered the best early novelist who wrote Pride and Prejudice (1812) and Emma (1816)
         12. Walter Scott made his three volume novels available to purchase in monthly installment.
         13. Notable Victorian novelists: Charles Dickens wrote A Christian Carol (1843), Lewis Carroll (Charles Ludwidge Dodgson) wrote Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland (1864) and Through The Looking Glass (1871)
         14. Modern novel deals with different themes like: The Great Depression, World War II, Cold War, Religious questions, communism and socolism. Famous modern novelists are: Virginia Woolf who wrote To the Light House (1927), Irish novelist James Joyce wrote Ulysses (1921), German novelist and journalist Erich maria Remarque wrote the famous anti war novel: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), American author William Faulkner’s The Sound and Fury (1929)
         15. Post modern novel depicted magic realism, metafiction, graphic novels. they include The Colour Purple (1982) by Alice Walker, In Cold Blood (1966) by Truman Capote; Roots (1976) by Alex Haley, Fear of Flying (1973) by Erica Jong, A Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
         16. Types of novel:
             1. Prose Romance
             2. Picaresque Narrative
             3. Novel of Incident
             4. Novel of Character
             5. Psychological Novel
             6. Epistolary Novel
             7. Realistic Novel
             8. Novel of Manners
             9. Gothic Novel
             10. Domestic Novel
             11. Regional Novel
             12. Prophetic Novel
             13. Travelogues
             14. Bildungsroman and Erziehungsroman
                 1. Kunstlerroman
             15. Social novel/Sociological novel
             16. Documentary fiction/Literature of facts
             17. Regional novel
             18. Involuted novels
             19. Antinovel
             20. New Novel (nouveau roman)
             21. Metafiction/surfiction
             22. fabulation