Lost in the Funhouse | Historical Context

Lost in the Funhouse Historical Context

 Literature of Exhaustion

In 1967, Barth published a now famous essay describing what he believed to be the state of literature at the time and sketching out some theories that he finished developing in a 1980 essay called "The Literature of Replenishment." Because the essay was written at approximately the same time Barth was working on the volume that included "Lost in the Funhouse," readers can assume a close relationship with the major theoretical points of the essay and the experimental form of the story.

The essay's main argument, according to critic Charles Harris, is that contemporary writers, facing what Barth called the "used-upness of certain [narrative] forms and or possibilities," must (in Harris's words) "successfully combine moral seriousness and technical virtuosity." What Harris calls "passionate virtuosity," Barth had defined as the duty of the modern writer to use all his or her technical abilities, all the techniques, but still "manage nonetheless...
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