Does anyone know where the demarcation of literature into 'Fiction' and 'Non-Fiction' came from? Why implicitly give 'Fiction' more legitimacy in that it's counterpoint is it's negation? Why not 'Fiction' and 'Factual', or 'Fiction' and 'Actual', or 'Fiction' and 'Assented Supposition'? It just seems odd, particularly since if any primacy would be implied - given the investment of our society in 'truth' - it would be to the fact-ish side of writing.
And don't come at me with the 'we can never really get a handle on the truth so it's best to leave it unspecific' argument. We peddle dubious facts routinely in everyday life, let alone academia. I don't buy it.
But damnnit if it ain't buggin' the goddamn shit outta me.
Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bue...
4 comments:
Is it possible that fiction was the first/initially more popular form of printed books, and hence library sections?
This is, of course, just a guess.
Its an interesting quandary.
I do know the word 'fiction' was birthed somewhere around 1400 from the Latin, fictionem/fictio meaning a 'fashioning or feigning' - which is of course from the more well known fingere meaning 'to shape, form, devise, feign'. (which was originally only used to describe the kneading (not to be confused with needing) of clay. The term transfered to literature around 1600.
Non-fiction emerged as a concept in the English language around 1900. 'Non' being a prefix stolen from the French who added it to their vocabulary around 1400.
What is also interesting is that the word opposition from the Old French 'oposite' somewhere between 1390 - 1400 the same time as the birth of the words 'fiction' and 'non'. The French used the word to mean (and this is a rough translation) to place on the other side of something. Latin further developed the use of the word in - you guessed it - 1598 (2 years before the birth of fiction as literature) to mean contrary in nature or character (oppositus).
The closest I can come to a theory for the development of 'non-fiction' has to do with Freud. If my memory serves me correctly - he first spoke about his theories on opposites in a letter to Wilhelm Fliess in 1899. This is why I am not surprised that the term 'non' came onto the English radar in 1900. Freud maintained that the impulses to perversion occur regularly as pairs of opposites... sadism/masochism, masculine/feminine and activity/passivity. It makes sense to me that you have lost sleep over this idea. Freud argues that opposites are a clear example of meta psychology and involve conflict at the core of the processes of the psyche, with its drives and ambivalences. Opposites are of course at the core of metaphysical philosophy also, and we know how long people have sat around pontificating those ideas...
earnest much?! ox
So since the term 'fiction' entered English parlance around the 1400's, and the Gutenberg (not Steve) printing press was developed and gained popularity around the same time, perhaps this indeed explains the location of the term 'fiction' in activity of collecting and archiving books. And perhaps the most fundamental, unquestioned literature was the 'factual' kind - the scriptures etc. So there was simply literature with fiction as a sub category of the whole. But as fiction overtook it's category in popularity and scope, it was necessary to give what wasn't fiction a name...non-fiction.
Gosh I know clever people...
Yes!
Basically the smarter we get, the more tendency we have to define and partition particular realities so that we can interrogate them with more articulation and precision. Scripture is an interesting one. Mark was there, Luke might have been (and spoke Greek), Matthew was half there, and John definatly wasn't... Yet fundamentalists all over the word insist that Mark and John are equal in their non-fictioness.
Lets not open that can of worms tonight hey?!
Big Love xoxo
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