Metafiction Summary

In the following essay, Herzberger analyzes the characters of the Spanish metafictional novel of the 1970s and 1980s. Character in fiction is an invention. Even when real people from outside the te... Read more

In the following essay, Wood contends that Lowry's short story “Ghostkeeper” reveals insights into his creative process and acts as a model for his later work. The 1973 publica... Read more

In the following essay, Christensen provides a thematic and stylistic analysis of John Barth's metafictional novels The Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy. One of the stories in John Barth&#... Read more

In the following essay, Hedeen discusses William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury as a work of metafiction, and explores the affinities shared between Faulkner and William Gass. Generally r... Read more

In the following essay, Kennedy examines two little-known works of short metafiction—Sherwood Anderson's “Death in the Woods” and Gordon Weaver's “The Parts o... Read more

In the following essay, Tani provides an overview of the metafictional anti-detective novel and reviews the major works of the sub-genre. Metafictional anti-detective novels belong only in a genera... Read more

In the following essay, Fishburn identifies and discusses the work of Doris Lessing as a metafictional writer. —A book which does not contain its counterbook is considered incomplete. &#... Read more

In the following essay, Hutcheon traces the implications of metafiction on the literary genre of the novel. The critical acceptance, not to say canonization, of contemporary metafiction—post... Read more

In the following essay, Herzberger perceives the maturation of contemporary Spanish metafiction “as a condition of intrinsic literary factors.” In its simplest and most common form, m... Read more

In the following essay, Spires charts the development of the Spanish metafictional novel in the 1960s. The so-called “art for art's sake” movement of the 1920s and 1930s came t... Read more