Literary Terms Defined
October's issue of Harper's Magazine had a reprint of "Words into Hype" by Chris Offutt from the Seneca Review. It elicited some chuckles. I've had more than a few blog posts about how we define some of these same literary terms. Offutt's twisted take on these terms should be distributed with the syllabus to lit and writing students nationwide -- busting open the pretentions of genres would make an excellent starting place for any student who's about to take on serious authors and serious writing.
Here's are a few of Offutt's definitions with the links to my blog entries on the same subject:
Memoir: From the Latin memoria, meaning "memory" a popluar form in which the writer remembers entire passages of dialogue from the past, with the ultimate goal of blaming the writer's parents for his current psychological challenges. (see my blog posts from March 5, 2008 and August 21, 2008)
Novel: A quaint, longer form that fell out of fashion with the advent of the memoir.
Creative Nonfiction: Prose that is true, except in the case of memoir.
Novel-in-Stories: A term invented solely to hoodwing the novel-reading public into inadvertently purchasing a collection of short fiction. (see my blog post from April 24, 2008)
Literary Essay: Akin to the personal essay, only with bigger words and more profound content intended to demonstrate that the essayist is smarter than all readers, writers, teachers, and Europeans. (see my blog post from May 27, 2008)
Clandestine Science Fiction Novel: A work set in the future that receives a strong reception from the literary world as long as no one mentions that is is, in fact, science fiction; for example, The Road, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. (see my review of Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods in the May 2008 issue of Open Letters. )