Literary fiction
Related: cultural elitism - high culture - fiction - literature - literary genre - merit - modernist literature - realism - serious - Western canon
Literary fiction is a somewhat uneasy term that has come into common usage since around 1970, principally to distinguish 'serious' fiction from the many types of genre fiction and popular fiction. For example, a traditional first novel is supposed not to be science fiction, nor a detective story, but with literary content usually partly autobiographical. However, it can be argued that all novels, no matter how "literary", also fall within the bounds of one or more genres. Thus Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is a romance; Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is a psychological thriller; and James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a coming-of-age story. These novels would usually be stocked in the general or possibly the classics section of a bookstore. Indeed, many works now regarded as literary classics were originally written as genre novels. [Jun 2006]
Compare: genre fiction - popular fiction
Literary fiction
Literary fiction is a somewhat uneasy term that has come into common usage since around 1970, principally to distinguish 'serious' fiction from the many types of genre fiction and popular fiction. For example, a traditional first novel is supposed not to be science fiction, nor a detective story, but with literary content usually partly autobiographical.
Literary fiction includes works written as short story, novella, novel and novel sequence. Of these, the novella is relatively uncommon in English literature, and more important in German literature or Russian literature. There is no particular reason that forms should be so limited; other categories could include the novelette, and the graphic novel as represented by a work such as Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth.
The distinction has its artificial side, in the sense that magical realism counts as literary, while fantasy writing is excluded; the dividing line cannot be accurately drawn on the basis of content alone, and has to include style as a consideration. Literary prizes usually concern themselves with literary fiction, and their shortlists can give a working definition.
It has become a commonplace that 'literary fiction' is in itself just another genre. This accords with the marketing practices now general in the book trade. It may also be taken to be the latest version of the death of the novel debate that has run from 1950, and reflects at one remove the importance accorded the novel as it replaced poetry as the central literary form in Western Europe and North America from the 1930s. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_fiction [Mar 2005]
Genre fiction vs literary fiction
The term genre fiction is sometimes used as a pejorative antonym of literary fiction, which is presumed to have greater artistic merit and higher cultural value. In this view, by comparison with literary fiction, genre fiction is thought to be formulaic, commercial, sensational, melodramatic, and sentimental. By extension, the readers of genre fiction—the mass audience—are supposed to have coarser, less educated taste in literature than readers of literary fiction. Genre fiction is then, essentially, thought to be the literature that appeals to the mass market.
But from another point of view, literary fiction itself is simply another category or genre. That is, it can be thought of as having conventions of its own, such as use of an elevated, poetic, or idiosyncratic prose style; or defying readers' plot expectations; or making use of particular theoretical or philosophical ideas. Any work that could be termed "experimental" would usually fall into the literary category. The publishing industry itself treats literary fiction as one category among others.
In addition, it can be argued that all novels, no matter how "literary", also fall within the bounds of one or more genres. Thus Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is a romance; Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is a psychological thriller; and James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a coming-of-age story. These novels would usually be stocked in the general or possibly the classics section of a bookstore. Indeed, many works now regarded as literary classics were originally written as genre novels. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_fiction#Genre_fiction_and_literary_fiction [Sept 2005]
See also: genre fiction
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