Anecdote

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An anecdote [1] [2] is "a story with a point", [3] such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. [4]

Contents

Anecdotes may be real or fictional; [5] the anecdotal digression is a common feature of literary works [6] and even oral anecdotes typically involve subtle exaggeration and dramatic shape designed to entertain the listener. [7] An anecdote is always presented as the recounting of a real incident involving actual people and usually in an identifiable place. In the words of Jürgen Hein, they exhibit "a special realism" and "a claimed historical dimension". [8]

Etymology and usage

The word anecdote (in Greek: ἀνέκδοτον "unpublished", literally "not given out") comes from Procopius of Caesarea, the biographer of Emperor Justinian I (r.527–565). Procopius produced c.550 CE a work entitled Ἀνέκδοτα (Anekdota, variously translated as Unpublished Memoirs or as Secret History), which consists primarily of a collection of short incidents from the private life of the Byzantine court. Gradually, the term "anecdote" came to be applied [9] to any short tale used to emphasize or illustrate whatever point an author wished to make. In the context of Greek, Estonian, Lithuanian, Bulgarian and Russian humor, an anecdote refers to any short humorous story without the need of factual or biographical origins.

As evidence

Anecdotal evidence is an informal account of evidence in the form of an anecdote. The term is often used in contrast to scientific evidence, as evidence that cannot be investigated using the scientific method. The problem with arguing based on anecdotal evidence is that anecdotal evidence is not necessarily typical; only statistical evidence can determine how typical something is. Misuse of anecdotal evidence is an informal fallacy.

When used in advertising or promotion of a product, service, or idea, anecdotal evidence is often called a testimonial. The term is also sometimes used in a legal context to describe certain kinds of testimony. Psychologists have found that people are more likely to remember notable examples than the typical example. [10]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Short story</span> Brief work of literature, usually written in narrative prose

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In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elegy</span> Poem of serious reflection, usually a lament for the dead

An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead".

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Anecdotal evidence is evidence based only on personal observation, collected in a casual or non-systematic manner.

A fabliau is a comic, often anonymous tale written by jongleurs in northeast France between c. 1150 and 1400. They are generally characterized by sexual and scatological obscenity, and by a set of contrary attitudes—contrary to the church and to the nobility. Several of them were reworked by Giovanni Boccaccio for the Decameron and by Geoffrey Chaucer for his Canterbury Tales. Some 150 French fabliaux are extant, the number depending on how narrowly fabliau is defined. According to R. Howard Bloch, fabliaux are the first expression of literary realism in Europe.

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The sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility is an 18th- and 19th-century literary genre which celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimentalism, which is to be distinguished from sensibility, was a fashion in both poetry and prose fiction beginning in the eighteenth century in reaction to the rationalism of the Augustan Age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sketch story</span>

A sketch story, literary sketch or simply sketch, is a piece of writing that is generally shorter than a short story, and contains very little, if any, plot. The genre was invented after the 16th century in England, as a result of increasing public interest in realistic depictions of "exotic" locales. The term was most popularly used in the late nineteenth century. As a literary work, it is also often referred to simply as "the sketch".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trope (literature)</span> Use of figurative language for artistic effect

A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase". The word trope has also undergone a semantic change and now also describes commonly recurring or overused literary and rhetorical devices, motifs or clichés in creative works. Literary tropes span almost every category of writing, such as poetry, film, plays, and video games.

Traditional stories, or stories about traditions, differ from both fiction and nonfiction in that the importance of transmitting the story's worldview is generally understood to transcend an immediate need to establish its categorization as imaginary or factual. In the academic circles of literature, religion, history, and anthropology, categories of traditional story are important terminology to identify and interpret stories more precisely. Some stories belong in multiple categories and some stories do not fit into any category.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literature</span> Written work of art

Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems, and including both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irony</span> Rhetorical device and literary technique

Irony, in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected. It typically figures as a rhetorical device and literary technique. In some philosophical contexts, however, it takes on a larger significance as an entire way of life.

An argument from anecdote is an informal logical fallacy, where anecdotal evidence is presented as an argument; without any other contributory evidence or reasoning. This type of argument is considered as an informal logical fallacy as it is unpersuasive – since the anecdote could be made up, misconstrued or be a statistical outlier which is insignificant when further evidence is considered. This fallacy can often be found in conjunction with the hasty generalisation fallacy – where the hasty generalisation is made from unsubstantiated anecdotes.

References

  1. Cuddon, J. A. (1992). Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory Third Ed. London: Penguin Books. p. 42.
  2. Oxford Dictionary's definition of an anecdote
  3. Epstein 1989 , pp. xix
  4. Epstein, Lawrence (1989). A Treasury of Jewish Anecdotes . Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. pp. xix. ISBN   9780876688908.
  5. Kennedy, X. J. (2005). Handbook of Literary Terms, Third Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. p. 8.
  6. Cuddon 1992 , p. 42
  7. Hein, Jürgen (1981). "Die Anekdote". Formen der Literatur in Einzeldarstellungen. By Knörrich, Otto. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner. p. 15.
  8. Hein 1981 , p. 15
  9. Its first appearance in English is of 1676 ( OED ).
  10. Graesser, A.C.; Hauft-Smith, K.; Cohen, A.D.; Pyles, L.D. (1980). "Structural Components of Reading Time". Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 19 (2): 135–51. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(80)90132-2.