Forms and Functions of Metafiction

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, Free University of Berlin, course: Modern and Contemporary Short Stories, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The Greek prepositionµet?('meta'), which in this context takes on the meaning of 'about', and the literary term 'fiction', which refers to literary work based on imagination, together constitute the term 'metafiction'. From the start metafiction has been described as fiction 'somehow about fiction itself'. First mentioned at the end of the 1950s, it was further defined throughout the following three decades. Although the term has only been coined in the second half of the 20th century, it is not new to literature. The fiction described can alrea.......