Fictional encyclopaedism

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Fictional encyclopaedism is a term used in literary studies [1] [2] [3] to refer to a style of fiction writing where an author amasses an exhaustive amount of detail about a fictional world to include in or prepare for writing a work of fiction. It is not to be confused with fictional encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia Galactica , Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius , and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy .

James Joyce's Finnegans Wake and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick are examples of fictional encyclopaedism due to their didactic tone and reach for infinite inclusiveness and encyclopedic range of topics with essay-like text.[ citation needed ]

Peter Wilkins stresses the conveyance of vast amount of information and the attempt at nearly exhaustive coverage of subject matter. [4]

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References

  1. Swigger, Ronald T. "Fictional Encyclopedism and the Cognitive Value of Literature." Comparative Literature Studies (1975): 351-366.
  2. Clark, Hilary. The Fictional Encyclopaedia (Routledge Revivals): Joyce, Pound, Sollers. Taylor & Francis, 2011
  3. Ward, Kiron (2017) Fictional encyclopaedism in James Joyce, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Roberto Bolaño: towards a theory of literary totality. Doctoral thesis (PhD), University of Sussex.
  4. Wilkins, Peter Duncan. "The transformation of the circle: an exploration of the post-encyclopaedic text." PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 1986.