Theories of fiction

Fiction is a classic topic dating back to Aristotle’s Poetics (fourth century BC), but it was the philosophy of language in the latter half of the twentieth century that took the concept of fiction itself up as an issue. Responding to trends in contemporary aesthetics, researchers of philosophy and aesthetics in Japan have also come to discuss the concept of fiction since the 1990s. But while theoretical discussions often argue the effects of particular techniques or strategies, there are few discussions of ideal forms of fiction, or the relative strengths or weaknesses of works based on a specific standard. As we shall see in the following pages, earlier Japanese theories of fiction were included in a fragmentary fashion within theories of the novel formulated by practicing authors and critics. Theories of the novel by literati tend to become discussions of the relative merits of what sorts of novels are good, or prescriptive theories presenting an image of what the novel should be, with little discussion of what the novel, in a general sense, including both “good novels” and “bad novels,” actually is.