Dictionary

fictionality en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-né- Proto-Indo-European *dʰinéǵʰti Proto-Italic *θingō Proto-Italic *fingōder. Latin fingō Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin fictiōder. Old French ficcionbor. Middle English ficcioun English fiction Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālisbor. Old French -albor. ▲ Latin -ālis Old French -elbor. ▲ Latin -ālisbor. Middle English -al English -al English fictional Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Latin -itāsder. Old French -itebor. Middle English -ite English -ity English fictionality From fictional + -ity.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) State or quality of being fictional.
   • But, of course, characters in postmodernist narrative fictions, too, can become aware of their own fictionality—characters such as Julia the policeman's wife, or the magazine-reader in Burroughs' Exterminator!, or the fictional author in Barth's "Life-Story." 1987, Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction:
   • As I discuss later, as well, authors within the realistic mode often encode their texts with markers of not only a self-conscious fictionality but also an irony regarding their projects that is, I would maintain, meant to be discovered. 1996, Katherine Kearns, Nineteenth-Century Literary Realism: Through the Looking Glass, page 257:
   • To be sure the anticipatory proleptics of the "historical survey in future-form" associated with pseudonymity rests upon the literary fiction of the pre-historicality of the revelation of these secrets; but this fictionality is intended to emphasize precisely by means of its esoteric quality that God will allow the elect righteous (cf. I Enoch 1:1) and wise persons (cf. I Enoch 100:6, 104:12) of the present day to participate already in his revelation that has proceeded from the mouths of the righteous and wise ones of pre-history, through the "literary" medium of the book. 1979, Erhardt Güttgemanns, Candid Questions Concerning Gospel Form Criticism, page 132:

Forms